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 Oriolessettled 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.
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 left hand discomfort. Westburg walked and stole a base in the first inning while serving as designated hitter.
The Orioles will provide an update later, and they also 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.
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.”
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, XX in the eighth. The Orioles have used four position players on the mound this season in three games.
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.
Escarra, a former Orioles draft pick and 30-year-old rookie, and Ben Rice reached the second deck in the second inning.
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.
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. He retired nine in a row, hit O’Hearn with one out in the fourth and disposed of the next 11. Nothing came close to threatening his run at history. The outs were routine, drama-less, almost boring.
* Gunnar Henderson's hitting streak ended at 14 games.