Ramírez takes loss as Yankees win nightcap, gain split (with quotes)

Orioles right-hander Yefry Ramírez showed a good changeup and some poise when he got into jams tonight. But the New York Yankees still hit him enough to take a 4-0 lead on their way to an 10-2 victory over the Orioles. The clubs split a doubleheader in front of 26,340 at Oriole Park.

The Orioles won the opener 5-4 as Danny Valencia hit a go-ahead three-run homer in the last of the sixth.

Coming off an outing at Philadelphia where he allowed one hit and one earned run in five innings, Ramírez gave up nine hits and four runs in four-plus innings tonight. Ramírez took the loss to fall to 0-3 with an ERA of 3.93 through four big league appearances. He walked two and fanned four, throwing 92 pitches.

He showed some poise to strike out Clint Frazier with the bases loaded in the first. But the Yankees took a 1-0 lead off him when Brett Gardner singled to start the game and scored on a Didi Gregorius double.

After Ramírez weaved his way through some traffic in the second and third, he gave up a two-run homer to Gardner in the fourth. Gardner's 426-foot blast to right-center was his seventh homer. He connected on a 94 mph fastball for a 3-0 lead.

When Giancarlo Stanton doubled to start the fifth and scored on Greg Bird's single, the lead grew to 4-0 and Ryan Meisinger replaced Ramírez. Ramírez threw a whopping 38 changeups tonight, getting 12 swings and misses. But New York made some hard contact off both his slider and fastball.

Meisinger pitched three perfect innings facing just eight batters thanks to a double play. He threw 39 pitches, 25 for strikes and fanned Aaron Judge and Stanton in his last inning, the seventh.

New York completed the scoring with four in the eighth and two in the ninth. Austin Romine hit a loud two-run homer to left off Brad Brach. He blasted a 95 mph fastball 414 feet for his fifth home run. Gardner's double made it 7-0 and a throwing error by Jonathan Schoop scored the eighth run. The Yankees got two in the ninth off Tanner Scott.

The Orioles did very little on offense against New York righty Luis Cessa. He threw six scoreless innings on three hits on 85 pitches. Cessa walked three and fanned four. He gave up a leadoff double to Chris Davis in the second, but his outfielders made a couple of nice catches behind him and his infielders turned two double plays on his behalf.

The Orioles avoided their ninth shutout when Tim Beckham hit a two-run to left off Giovanny Gallegos in the eighth. But they were still outhit 17-5.

The Orioles (25-66) have lost seven of eight, 14 of 16 and 25 of 31 games. They have been held to two runs or less nine times in the past 12 games and fall to 13-30 at Oriole Park. The Yankees (59-30) have won nine of their last 14 and are 4-4 versus the Orioles this season.

In the third game of this series on Tuesday night, right-hander Andrew Cashner (2-9, 4.39 ERA) will face right-hander Masahiro Tanaka (7-2, 4.58 ERA).

Note: Manager Buck Showalter said Jace Peterson banged his knee into the left field wall trying to make a catch in the eighth inning and had X-rays. It looks like he will be OK.

Postgame quotes:

Showalter on Peterson: "He banged his knee into that wall there. It's pretty sore. They've already done the X-rays. It looks OK and he'll be day-to-day. I actually was considering him pitching, but I didn't want to take the chance after he banged his knee out there. I've always had trouble with, what are you telling a guy when you tell him to go out and pitch? I hate that. I also hate using eight or nine pitchers. That's why when you're sitting around sometimes until 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock on the road to play a game. These type of doubleheaders can put you on your heels with your depth."

Showalter on whether Peterson was too aggressive getting thrown out trying to steal down 4-0?: "No, I don't think that's the case. I wish ... that would be an easy excuse. I think with constantly trying to figure out a way to score more runs, I'm going to certainly talk about it when it happens. It's not always the players ... there's a lot of things involved in ... they had a guy thrown out at the plate with nobody out and they didn't have any trouble scoring runs. Sometimes those things happen to be more than it is. You don't like it. You address it. I really don't want to get on guy's aggressiveness - especially when we've had so much trouble scoring runs, but after it happens, and you get thrown out, it doesn't look good. I understand that."

Showalter on Brach's struggles: "Last time, he was real good. Actually his arm strength and it's that one pitch. He gets it in the wrong place where he doesn't get it. I think he's fighting himself a lot, too. You can tell he's not quite comfortable with his delivery and his command, and tried a lot of different things over the years. He's had some good spells for us and will again. Tonight, it got away from him."

Ramírez on his outing and facing his former team: "It felt good to face them, even though I wanted to have a really good game so I could show them that they lost a really good player. But things didn't work out my way. I think I wasn't able to command my fastball at all. I missed some sliders, as well. The combination of that didn't lead to good results today. I will take this as a learning opportunity and growing experience. Get feedback from the veteran guys and hopefully I can have better success in the next starts."

Following tonight's game the Orioles returned today's 26th man, pitcher Jimmy Yacabonis to Triple-A Norfolk.

Machado note: Manny Machado told a group of New York reporters after tonight's game that he wasn't going to respond to trade rumors. The latest tonight had the Yankees expressing interest in acquiring him. Before tonight's game, Machado spoke at length with reporters on various topics. Some of those comments are here.