BALTIMORE — About 45 minutes after he threw his final pitch, Aroldis Chapman was still in his uniform, sitting in front of his locker going over that pitch. A slider high was called for a ball to walk in the winning run as the Orioles beat the Yankees 2-1 in 11 innings at Camden Yards Friday night.
Chapman had gone through a rough 48 hours. The Yankees’ closer walked the bases loaded Thursday night, but the Yankees survived. Friday, he came in to clean up with the bases loaded and the Bombers’ lost on a slider that was centimeters too high.
But that’s how it goes when you are living on the thin margins of an inconsistent offense. Without run support — this is the fifth out of eight games the Yankees have decided by two runs or less — the bullpen has been walking a high-leverage tightrope every night.
That was a bad Yankees’ trend of the 2021 team and so was losing to the Orioles.
The Yankees were 11-8 against the Orioles last season, which played a part in their scramble for a playoff spot. They ended up sneaking in and having to play the Wild Card game on the road because they didn’t dominate the teams they were supposed to dominate, like the Orioles. The Rays, who won the American League East, went 18-1 against the O’s, the Blue Jays went 14-5 and the Red Sox went 13-6.
“I don’t really care who it is. We need to get wins,” DJ LeMahieu said. “I feel like we were hyped up and ready to go home and came here and we can’t let our guard down, we gotta get some wins.”
It would be a lot easier to turn that around if the offense was clicking as it is supposed to.
The Bombers went 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position Friday night, a trend already this season that was a problem last year. They are now 11-for-61 with RISP this season, which is an admittedly small sample size.
But it certainly brings back the memories of 2021′s frustrating offense.
The Yankees hit .237/.328/.370 with a .698 OPS last season with RISP. They had 1,165 at-bats with RISP and converted that to just 453 runs.
“It’s fair to say that about last year,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “.If we got a third hit then it’s just a great night. So, the bottom line is one runs not going to get it done. We got to do better.”
The Yankees had plenty of opportunity to do better, but none more so than the sixth inning, when they had the bases loaded with one out. Aaron Hicks, who was ahead 3-0 in the at-bat, grounded into a double play to end the Yankees threat. In the 11th, with Anthony Rizzo as the ghost runner, Giancarlo Stanton scorched a ground ball to short, which hit the first baseman for an automatic out. Josh Donaldson struck out and Joey Gallo was tagged out by the catcher on a swinging bunt.
“I thought I had a good hop and just all just hopped up, hit me. I was kind of like ‘how did that happen? It was just trying to get the third there and then the ball can’t hit me there,” Rizzo said. “And so it’s a bad baserunning play on my end and it cost us.”
That put the bullpen back on the tightrope Friday night.
After Jordan Montgomery went five innings, holding the Orioles scoreless, the Yankees used six relievers. Clarke Schmidt gave the Bombers 1.1 innings, but issued two, one-out walks to load the bases. That’s when Boone turned to Chapman, who threw 16 pitches and only hit the strike zone four times on Thursday. Chapman found the strike zone early, going ahead 0-2 on Romon Urias, before he lost it. On the final pitch, Chapman walked in the winning run.
“You’re not even thinking about last night at all,” a visibly frustrated Chapman said through Yankees translator Marlon Abreu. “This is a brand new game here. A brand new opportunity, I was trying to execute and unfortunately, things didn’t work out the way we wanted it.”
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