NEW YORK – The Orioles escaped the oppressive heat in Tampa, knowing that temperatures would rise in the Bronx for afternoon and late-morning starts this weekend and possibly touch triple digits Tuesday in Baltimore. A stretch of consecutive games in a row will reach 16 before Thursday’s off-day, and interim manager Tony Mansolino talked about scraping guys off the grass.

He had to scratch Adley Rutschman, who was bothered by left side discomfort. And the Orioles had to face Yankees left-hander Max Fried, who brought nine wins and a 1.89 ERA into the series opener.

Adversity keeps stacking up for a team trying to claw its way out of a deep hole. It can be weather, health, exhaustion, opponent or something else, but the Orioles won’t always let it stall the momentum that might be building.  

The Orioles jumped Fried early and lost their legs, but Coby Mayo delivered a game-tying single in the sixth inning and Ramón Urías led off the eighth with an opposite-field home run off Luke Weaver in a 5-3 victory over the Yankees before an announced sellout crowd of 47,034.

Urías fell behind 0-2 and worked the count full, and his 337-foot fly ball landed inside the right field foul pole. Gunnar Henderson extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a pinch-hit RBI single, and the Orioles (33-42) moved within nine games of .500 for the first time since May 11.

“It’s a short porch,” Urías said. “I know that it’s only gone here, but I was pretty sure that it was going.”

“We were all blowing as hard as we could," Mansolino said, "so I felt good about that. The whole dugout.

"Robbie (Chirinos) and I talked and it was, ‘Hey man, he might go deep right here,’ just with how everything was lining up. We were kind of laughing. It worked out. Maybe we spoke it into existence. But he’s been great, very underrated player."

The Orioles improved to 18-14 under Mansolino and 7-15 against left-handed starters. They’re 18-12 against the Yankees since 2023.

“I think in reality this is what people were expecting the Orioles to be," Tomoyuki Sugano said via interpreter Yuto Sakurai, "and I strongly feel like we still have a chance to win."

Colton Cowser’s ground ball sneaked into right field in the sixth for a one-out single, Gary Sánchez reached on an infield hit and Mayo’s fly ball fell into center field for a 3-3 tie. Mayo has two career multi-hit games, the first on Saturday.

Fried allowed three runs, walked none and struck out seven in six innings. He threw 105 pitches.

“Just trying to beat the mistake that he makes because when he locates well, he’s almost unhittable,” Urías said. “He’s a really good pitcher. He has done it for a while now, and like I said, he’s a guy you can only hit it when he misses his spots.”

Sánchez walked in the eighth after Urías’ homer and Ryan O’Hearn came off the bench and singled. Henderson, in need of a breather after the Rays series, lined an opposite-field single off left-hander Tim Hill for a 5-3 lead.

“It’s amazing,” Urías said. “We’ve been doing such a good job lately as a team. We’ve been playing great defense, we’re taking great at-bats and the pitching is doing their job, too. It’s just a joy to play right now.”

The bullpen gave Mansolino 5 1/3 scoreless innings. Scott Blewett earned the win after retiring all six batters, and Félix Bautista struck out two and notched his 16^th save. Per STATS, he’s the first Orioles pitcher with saves on multiple birthdays.

Blow out the candles and rally past the first-place Yankees. 

"When you’re in a 16-game stretch, it's going to be all hands on deck, so we've got to be prepared for any situation no matter what," Blewett said. "So the fact that we were able to go out and shut it down tonight, that was awesome.

“We all pick each other up. It doesn't matter the day. It doesn't matter what the score is. We all kind of just go out. Big league innings are big league innings and when they call on us, everybody's ready, everybody's prepared and it's awesome to watch. Whenever that phone rings and you get that opportunity to go out and give it your all.”

Aaron Judge hit a tie-breaking home run off Sugano in the third, and the right-hander turned in his shortest U.S. start at 3 2/3 innings.

Mansolino removed Sugano after an intentional walk to Judge with two outs in the fourth and DJ LeMahieu on second base. Jazz Chisholm Jr. singled, but right fielder Ramón Laureano threw out LeMahieu at the plate for his seventh outfield assist to tie for the major league lead. The call stood after a challenge.

“He’s done it a bunch lately," Mansolino said. "He had the one in Tampa that kept us in the game at the plate. He had the other one at second base in Tampa. This is probably one of the most underrated free agent signings, the way this guy is playing. You look up on the board and it’s an .850-ish OPS. It’s Gold Glove defense. It’s impact defense, it’s walks. It’s huge. He’s been so good here. Nobody’s really noticing him other than the people in that clubhouse.”

Sugano allowed three runs and seven hits, and his three walks set a career high. He threw 32 of his 89 pitches in the first inning and surrendered two runs to tie the game, with the first four batters reaching against him. Judge cleared the right field wall leading off the third for his 48^th homer against the Orioles in 111 games.

Jackson Holliday was out of the lineup until Rutschman’s removal, taking him from bench role to leadoff hitter, and he responded with a 102.1 mph single in the top of the first inning. The Orioles loaded the bases with two outs against Fried, who hit Laureano and Cowser, and Sánchez lined a sweeper into left field for a 2-0 lead.

Sánchez got in a shot against his former team, and the Orioles got Fried to throw 29 pitches in the inning.

Sugano topped him by three, and it began with walks to Paul Goldschmidt and Trent Grisham. Judge singled to load the bases and Chisholm singled to score Goldschmidt. The game was knotted on Jasson Domínguez’s sacrifice fly to deep left-center field with one out.

Fried retired nine in a row after the Sánchez single. Mayo doubled down the left field line with two outs in the fourth.

The Orioles provided Sugano with an extra day of rest but he hasn’t completed the fifth inning in his last three starts. He’s allowed nine earned runs and 10 total with 21 hits in 12 2/3.

"I think there were several things that took place, one of them being mechanics," he said. "I walked a guy, the first hitter of the game, and that wasn’t really great. But I got out of it with two runs, so I’ll take that as a positive thing."

The issue with mechanics is "very minor stuff and I know the reasoning behind it, what’s not working," he said. "And I know how to fix them, too."

Keegan Akin walked two batters in the fifth and got a double play, and Yennier Cano stranded two in the sixth. Blewett calmed the situation and took on a role as hero.

“It went as good as it could have gone," Mansolino said. "We’re sitting there trying to figure out what to do in the eighth inning. What we had left was (Andrew) Kittredge right there, but if you throw Kittredge right there in the eighth, we have nobody to throw the 10^th or the 11^th. We can’t go through a major league baseball game and not have somebody to cover the 10^th and the 11^th."

The Orioles can’t aim for contender status in the last month or two of the season. They need to be much quicker, before the July 31 trade deadline, or veterans could be moved and the white flag raised.

The goal is to become buyers or to stand pat by going on a tear.

“Honestly, I feel like we’ve been showing it this past couple weeks or month, however it’s been,” Henderson said earlier today. “We’ve got on a few good runs, and we’ve gone out there and put up a lot of runs. I feel like we’ve kind of hit our stride a  little bit. We still have a lot of room to go, but we’ve been making strides in the right direction.”

They didn't get turned around tonight despite the many reasons, like arriving late to New York and working on minimal rest.

“I think we just keep believing in ourselves, keep believing in what we’ve got,” Urías said, “and finally, it’s showing up.”

“Grit," Blewett said. "I said it when I got here. This team’s gritty. When I played against this team on other teams, I hated facing them. I’m just happy to be a part of it, like I said before. So to get in late, you have a lack of sleep and then you show up and go put your best effort on the field and get a win at Yankee Stadium on a Friday night, that’s awesome.

“Everybody seems a little more relaxed. Everybody's playing how they know they can play and it's a long season. You got 162 games. There's going to be ups and downs and it seems like everybody kind of realizes, even when you have those downs, you don't get to don't get too low, don't get too high. You kind of stay, trust your process and kind of seems like everyone's picking each other up right now.”

* Mansolino said Rutschman has side tightness and the Orioles will get more information on Saturday. Rutschman felt it during batting practice.

"Scott (Barringer), our trainer, smart guy, been around this a long time, pulled the plug right away to make sure," Mansolino said. "We’ll get it checked out and we’ll have more information on what the next steps are.”

* Down on the farm, Heston Kjerstad was out of Triple-A Norfolk’s lineup after fouling a ball off his right knee last night.

Dylan Beavers exited the game in the bottom of the first inning with a left shoulder injury after an outfield collision with Jordyn Adams resulted in Nathan Church’s inside-the-park home run.

Beavers, who’s batting .312 with an .881 OPS, walked off the field under his own power. MLB Pipeline ranks him as the No. 5 prospect in the organization.