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NEW YORK - Less than 24 hours after plotting how to navigate the many bullpen restrictions in a regulation game, Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino stood in the visiting dugout at Yankee Stadium and watched Zach Eflin throw 30 pitches in the first inning.
Only one run scored on Trent Grisham’s homer, but it’s become an exercise in this series that Mansolino would rather sit out.
Eflin threw 29 more in the second and surrendered two second-deck home runs. By the conclusion of the third, Eflin’s pitch count had risen to 90 and the Orioles were barreling toward a 9-0 loss to the Yankees before an announced sellout crowd of 46,142.
Clarke Schmidt no-hit them for seven innings, his removal coming after 103 pitches. He walked two batters in the first and nailed Ryan O’Hearn in the fourth. JT Brubaker entered in the eighth inning, his first major league appearance since 2022, and former Yankee Gary Sánchez led off with a full-count single at 103.2 mph for the Orioles' lone hit.
The Orioles have been no-hit seven times, the most recent by the Mariners’ Hisashi Iwakuma on Aug. 12, 2015 in Seattle. Today would have marked the first combined effort for both teams. Instead, the Orioles settled for being shut out for the seventh time this season.
Sánchez spared the embarrassment, but any momentum from last night’s 5-3 win was flattened.
“We take a lot of pride," Mansolino said. "Every major league team does. Nobody wants to be no-hit whether it’s by a single pitcher or multiple. I don’t know if it’s a sigh of relief. But it’s more of just, there’s pride involved right there. Gary saved their pride a little bit there for the night.”
“My mindset was just to break up the no-hitter,” Sánchez said through interpreter Brandon Quinones. “You just don't want it to happen so I was looking for a pitch in the zone trying to make a good swing.”
On the Yankees using Brubaker, Sánchez said, "They were up (9-0), so I think maybe they were trying to conserve some of their relievers for a closer game going forward, and (manager Aaron Boone) had confidence in him there and probably made sense.”
Schmidt’s last three outings are scoreless. He retired nine in a row, hit O’Hearn and disposed of the next 11. The outs were routine, drama-free, almost boring.
The Orioles (33-43) could have moved within eight games of .500 for the first time since May 6. They still can improve to 7-1-1 in their last nine series versus the Yankees with a win today.
An increase in healthy players would lower the degree of difficulty.
Catcher Adley Rutschman went on the 10-day injured list this afternoon with a strained left oblique, and Jordan Westburg exited today’s game in the top of the third inning with pain in his left index finger. Westburg walked and stole a base in the first inning while serving as designated hitter.
X-rays were negative, but the Orioles might be rushing a Triple-A player from Memphis to New York for the medical taxi squad.
Westburg dived into the bag with a protective mitt on his hand and appeared to wince as he rose to his feet. He missed six weeks with a hamstring injury, after fracturing his right hand last summer, and was 10-for-39 this month with two doubles and three home runs after returning to the active roster.
“Jammed his finger stealing second base," Mansolino said. "Sprained, strained, something along those lines, hoping it’s day-to-day right now. Nothing imminent with him. We feel like probably in a few days he’ll be OK, maybe earlier.”
"I went in hard trying to steal a base, didn’t get my hand up," Westburg said. "Surprised? Yeah. Kind of knew right away that something was weird because the sliding mitt was bent and just got more stiff and stiff as the inning went on. I wanted to stay in there. There’s nothing that pains me more than coming off the field. So it sucks. But I’m just trying to stay optimistic and hopefully be back very soon."
Coby Mayo pinch-hit for Westburg, who routinely gives the Orioles some of their most competitive at-bats and is described by Mansolino as “the glue.”
Westburg doesn't know how long he'll be out.
"I mean, I’m not a doctor, it’s hard for me to say," he said. "All I know is that there’s no fracture on the X-ray, so trying to stay optimistic in that sense."
The Orioles already were trying to regroup from the bad news on Rutschman.
“Something that’s not good, but tomorrow I’ll have more information on that," Mansolino said. "I didn’t have time with the early game and how late he got in the tube this morning. Everything is happening too close to the game to get the exact information, but tomorrow I’ll find out for you.”
"It's a gut punch," Eflin said. "You never want to see guys go down, but you know, we’ve got to figure out a way to keep winning.”
Twenty-one Orioles have been put on the injured list this season.
"Really tough," Westburg said. "I’ve dealt with it firsthand, so I can kind of speak to that, how frustrating it can be. I think I’m not the only guy in this clubhouse who all we want to do is be on the field and compete with each other. I know Rutsch is just like me in that sense. I’m sure he’s going through it. It sucks for us, but it’s the next man up.
"We’re playing some good baseball right now. I know today didn’t look great, but the past couple weeks have been very positive. There’s a lot of things good to take away from the past couple weeks, so we hope he’s back and this is a short stint, but for the rest of the guys in this clubhouse, I think it’s the next man up mentality and find a way to win ballgames."
Tomoyuki Sugano threw 32 pitches in the first last night and was gone after 3 2/3 innings, but the bullpen responded with 5 1/3 scoreless, including two by unheralded Scott Blewett, who retired the six batters he faced to earn the win.
Blewett was needed today in the seventh inning and J.C. Escarra’s two-out RBI single increased the lead to 9-0. Yennier Cano struck out the side in the seventh and infielder Luis Vázquez, pitching for the first time in his professional career, walked one and got a double play in a scoreless eighth. The Orioles have used four position players on the mound this season in three games.
“I never imagined pitching, even less so at Yankee Stadium,” Vázquez said via Quinones “Just trying to throw it over the plate and letting them hit.”
Eflin tried to take one for the team today. No one warmed as the Yankees scored three runs in the third inning for a 6-0 lead. They loaded the bases on three straight singles, Escarra had a sacrifice fly, and Oswald Peraza’s popup at 53.7 mph fell behind first base and inside the line after Cedric Mullins’ throwing error moved up the runners.
Andrew Kittredge finally got up as Eflin was preparing to strike out Aaron Judge and strand two runners. Kittredge hasn’t entered before the seventh, but he was summoned in the fourth.
Eflin was coming off a start in Tampa where he allowed seven runs and a career-high 12 hits in five innings. The Yankees had 10 hits by the third inning to go along with their six runs, and Eflin was finished for the day in his shortest start with the Orioles.
"It sucks, it’s a terrible feeling," Eflin said. "I’m supposed to go out there and pitch as long as I can and stay in the game so those guys remain rested. I had a goal going out there today, staying in the game as long as I can, and didn’t do that. Executed poorly. They take advantage of it. But at the end of the day, we have a chance to win the series tomorrow and win the road trip tomorrow.”
Escarra, a former Orioles draft pick and 30-year-old rookie, and Ben Rice reached the second deck in the second inning.
“Flush this as quick as possible and move on," Eflin said, "figure some things out in the bullpen and do a better job of executing next time.”
The Orioles worked Max Fried for 29 pitches in the first inning last night and Schmidt threw 27 today. Fried allowed two runs, but Schmidt escaped a jam created by back-to-back one-out walks.
The Yankees responded with a quick 1-0 lead on Grisham’s line drive over the short porch in right, 343 feet away, on an Eflin curveball. Grisham had three hits by the third inning.
Escarra homered on a sweeper and Rice on a sinker that was 104.4 mph off the bat. Eflin couldn’t find a solution.
“Bad execution," he said. "In a game where I needed to go deep into the game, I didn’t do that, so it doesn’t feel good letting the team down. But I think it just comes down to execution.”
Anthony Volpe lined a Kittredge fastball inside the right field foul pole at 347 feet away to give New York a 7-0 lead in the fifth. Volpe was 0-for-24 before today. Escarra reached on a 106.3 mph line drive off Jackson Holliday’s glove and he scored on Rice’s triple.
The only interest left was whether Schmidt and the bullpen could make history.
Unfortunately for the Orioles, they're grown accustomed to shaking off bad losses. The next challenge arrives Sunday morning with an 11:35 a.m. Roku game.
“We’ve handled it really good," Mansolino said. "I feel like we’ve hung in even with some of the tougher losses. We bounced back well the next day, so the expectation is tomorrow we come in, we’ve got a chance to win a series from New York, which is really hard to do, especially walking in from the series in Tampa and 16 in a row and the heat and the bullpen being smoked. There will be a lot of energy when they show up tomorrow, no doubt.”
* Gunnar Henderson's hitting streak ended at 14 games.
