Escape from N.Y.
Orioles avoid sweep at Yankee Stadium with 11-inning win
NEW YORK — The Orioles made nothing easy for themselves for three days in the Bronx this weekend, and their mettle was tested again as another ninthinning lead dissipated in the chilly New York air Sunday.
They had already been battered in the first two games of t he series. Wounded by allowing a total of 26 runs in the first two games of the series — a pair of humbling losses that knocked the Orioles out of first place for the first time this season — t hey needed a win Sunday to avoid being swept out of Yankee Stadium.
And Sunday’s game started to follow a familiar script, as the Orioles were one out away from victory but blew a multirun ninth-inning lead for the second time in Tonight, 7:10 TV: MASN INSIDE
Verrett gets win; Britton to be activated Nationals roll, 23-5 PG 4 Orioles manager Buck Showalter yells at umpire Stu Scheurwater, right, as Jim Reynolds gets between them. Showalter, who was disputing a ninth-inning balk call, was ejected. three games here in New York, this time amid controversy.
In a game that included its share of strange moments, the Orioles ultimately escaped Gotham with a 7-4 win over the Yankees in 11 innings, salvaging the series finale, but not before New York’s tying runs came in to score after a questionable balk call; manager Buck Showalter was ejected; the Yankee Stadium lights turned on, then off, then on again; and a Yankee pitched in the ninth, played first base in the 10th and pitched again in the 11th.
“Our guys refused to lose,” Showalter said of his team, which at 15-8 is off to its best start after 23 games since 2005. “They let us hang around a little bit there early.”
The Orioles overcame that adversity to score three runs in the 11th to win — Mark Trumbo drove in the go-ahead run after the Yankees walked Manny Machado intentionally to face him and scored two more in the inning — and were able to head to Boston for another early-season American League East road test with some