Gray, Yanks drop another game to lowly Orioles
NEW YORK » Sonny Gray was chased in the third inning by the team with the worst record in the majors, big leagueloss leader Alex Cobb ended a nine-start winless streak and the Baltimore Orioles beat the Yankees 7-5 Wednesday.
Despite what appeared to be a midgame lecture in the dugout by third base coach Phil Nevin during a rain delay, New York (68-38) dropped 5½ games behind Boston (75-34) heading into a four-game series at Fenway Park starting Thursday. This is the first time since the leagues split into divisions in 1969 that two teams in the same division began August with a winning percentage .640 or higher, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Gleyber Torres homered twice for the Yankees, a solo drive in the second and a threerun shot in the ninth.
On an afternoon that began with a partly sunny sky, Gray left under dark clouds just before a 39-minute rain delay. He had been 3-0 against the Orioles this year and had won three straight starts for the first time in a year, giving the Yankees hope he could become consistently reliable for the first time since they acquired him from Oakland last summer.
Instead, Gray (8-8) allowed seven runs, eight hits and two walks in 2 2/3 innings, raising his ERA to 5.56. He was booed as he walked off the mound and was replaced by Lance Lynn, who made his Yankees debut following his trade from Minnesota.
Lynn threw 71 pitches and allowed five hits over 4 1/3 scoreless innings, an appearance that rules him out for a start in the four-game series in Boston.
Cobb (3-14) had been 0-7 since winning at the New York Mets on June 5, losing his last five outings. He breezed against the Yankees with an early 7-1 lead, allowing one run and seven hits in six innings and stopping Baltimore’s streak of 11 consecutive road losses.
Gray started with a 1-2-3 first inning against the Orioles, who traded six veterans for prospects in recent weeks, then allowed his first five batters to reach in the second on four hits and a walk. Baltimore took a 5-0 lead on Trey Mancini’s runscoring single, Renato Nunez’s two-run double and Tim Beckham’s two-run single.
Torres led off the bottom half with his first home run since July 1, and Giancarlo Stanton came to the plate as the tying run. But Cobb struck out Stanton, leaving the Yankees 0 for 15 with four sacrifice flies in their last 19 plate appearances with the bases full.
Mancini homered in the third, and Breyvic Valera chased Gray with a run-scoring infield hit that made it 7-1. Gray threw a called third strike past Becham just before the rain delay.
Miguel Andjuar got a bases loaded-single against Mychal Givens in the eighth, but Paul Fry got pinch-hitter Neil Walker to ground into an inning-ending double play. Torres homered against Mike Wright Jr. in the ninth. one-hit seventh in his major league debut.