masn-baseballs-orioles.jpgNEW YORK – Orioles manager Buck Showalter had to pick his poison today. The club lived to tell about it.
Showalter ordered an intentional walk to rookie slugger Aaron Judge in the bottom of the ninth inning with Jacoby Ellsbury on third base, two outs and the Orioles clinging to a 6-4 lead over the Yankees. Gary Sánchez batted as the potential winning run against closer Zach Britton and struck out.
The Orioles won for only the second time in their last 11 games, avoided a sweep in the Bronx…

NEW YORK – Orioles manager Buck Showalter had to pick his poison today. The club lived to tell about it.

Showalter ordered an intentional walk to rookie slugger Aaron Judge in the bottom of the ninth inning with Jacoby Ellsbury on third base, two outs and the Orioles clinging to a 6-4 lead over the Yankees. Gary Sánchez batted as the potential winning run against closer Zach Britton and struck out.

The Orioles won for only the second time in their last 11 games, avoided a sweep in the Bronx and closed out their penultimate road trip of the season.

A risky move, to say the least, bringing the winning run to the plate, but Showalter once ordered an intentional walk to Barry Bonds with the bases loaded while managing the Diamondbacks.

“I’m trying to give us the best chance to win, OK?” Showalter said. “I know Zach wasn’t happy about it. That’s not the way he’s wired.”

Britton recorded his 15th save by getting the last four outs, stranding two runners each in the eighth and the ninth. He accepted the decision to walk Judge but didn’t endorse it.

“It’s not something I would have chose, but now with the rule it kind of surprises you for a second. But I just figured I had to get Sánchez,” he said.

“Obviously, I wanted to attack Judge. I like my chances there. But it’s not my call.”

Asked whether he understood the reasoning, Britton replied, “You’d have to ask him. Like I said, it wasn’t my call. My job is just to attack the next guy.”

Judge batted .426 (26-for-61) with five doubles, 11 home runs, 24 RBIs and 31 runs scored in 18 games against the Orioles this summer. He doubled off Brad Brach to lead off the eighth, a rope to left field that almost knocked down the fence.

The 31 runs are the most against an opponent in a single season since Ted Williams scored 31 against the St. Louis Browns in 1947.

Did Showalter walk Judge because the right fielder has hurt the Orioles with such force this year?

“If that’s the case, we’d walk just about all of them,” he replied.

“Has (Starlin) Castro? Sanchez hurt us. You’re just picking your poison. Two great, really good young hitters that … there wasn’t anybody standing at first.”

Sánchez has 31 home runs this season, so he’s no slouch. He struck out three times today, also fanning after Judge’s double in the eighth.

Tim-Beckham-swing-gray-sidebar.jpgShortstop Tim Beckham, whose three-run homer off Sonny Gray in the fourth inning gave the Orioles a 5-1 lead, said he never questioned the move. Not verbally or in his head. He didn’t even flinch as Judge trotted to first base.

His thoughts at the moment?

“We’ve got Zach Britton on the mound,” he said. “I’m thinking we are going to win the ballgame. That’s how I’m thinking every time he’s in the ballgame. I’m sure that’s how everyone in this clubhouse feels when he gets the ball on the mound. So, all the confidence in the world in Zach and the fact that we walked Judge is no big deal, and we get the next guy.

“If we didn’t walk Judge, he would have gotten Judge, too. My thoughts are we’re winning the game, no doubt.”

Beckham played a major role. He was 10-for-63 this month and 5-for-37 in his last 10 games before his 456-foot shot to left-center field.

“Felt better to win,” he said. “Felt good to put the bat on the ball, yeah. I’m not thinking about a tough stretch, just want to go in the game, get quality ABs. Big win for us today, and hopefully we can get rolling.

“It was good for us, keeping that momentum going into the homestand. As competitors, we don’t like to lose, and that was a tough three games we had. To go out and put up some runs for our pitching today was crucial.”

Pressed on how this month has been for him after a scorching August, Beckham kept it simple.

“It’s been baseball,” he replied. “You go out and compete every day, you’re not always going to have the results you want and it’s a grind. You come back the next day and grind it out. You kind of want to embrace the grind when you’re not swinging it well and making those adjustments.

“Baseball is a game of adjustments. I want to keep going out and competing every day until the last game.”

Ubaldo Jiménez struck out 10 batters in five innings and allowed one run on Didi Gregorius’ solo shot in the second.

“Everything was working,” he said. “First the fastball was there. I was able to command the fastball and attack the hitter, and whatever Caleb (Joseph) was calling I was executing. The split was really good.”

The split was exceptional, a swing-and-miss pitch against a team that rarely misses.

“Yeah, I think the main reason was because we attacked them with the fastball,” he said. “The fastball was really good today. It was hard and I was able to command it. So, that made the split even better.

“It felt really good to be able to be able to contribute and be there for the team. I haven’t been able to do that too many times, but it feels really good give them a chance.”

The Orioles went 2-8 on the road trip. They remain 5 1/2 games behind the Twins for the second wild card after being two back when they left Baltimore.

“Coming off a hot August like we had, it was definitely a grind,” Beckham said. “As hitters, we didn’t put up numbers like we normally do, but that’s the game of baseball. You want to come back and grind it out and come back, be ready to work the next day. And know that it just takes one hit, one ball on the barrel to get you locked in. Just keep competing, man, that’s all you can do.”

“It’s history,” Showalter said. “We’ve got a winning streak going. If we pitch like we pitched today, we’ve got a chance to run some wins off, and I wouldn’t sell us short. That’s the way we’re looking at it. If we can stay in the games with starting pitching, we’ve got a chance to make a run at it.”

Here’s more from the clubhouse:

Britton on escaping Bronx with a win: “It’s obviously good when you win. It’s a disappointing series, a disappointing road trip, but go home and try to win as many games as we can from here on out and hope that other teams get cold and get on a losing streak. But it’s going to be a challenge.”

Britton on Jiménez: “Huge, especially with the last couple of nights, for him to come in and do what he did. And our offense, Beckham coming up big with that home run, I felt like everyone relaxed a little bit, maybe. Their pitching had been so good against us, so to get a big swing off Gray there was big for the team. I think it just kind of let us relax a little bit, and we played a little better.”

Britton on team’s placement in the standings now compared to when trip started: “Completely different ends of the spectrum. If you look at it, we were right there going into Cleveland, and right now we’re on the outside looking in. We played some good teams, obviously, on this road trip. I think really it was disappointing the way Cleveland … obviously, they’re playing so well. But we need to win some games. We just couldn’t do it.

“Nothing really clicked for us on this road trip. Offense, pitching, it was a grind this whole time. Like I said, we’ve got our work cut out for us when we get home. Boston’s a first-place team, so we’re going to have to play good baseball to beat those guys.”

Britton on whether the team has to convince itself that it’s still contending: “I don’t think so. We’ve been playing baseball since such a young age. We go out there and there is no, ‘Oh gosh, we’re out of it. Let me just not put effort in.’

“When you get on the mound or in the box you always want to be successful, regardless of where you are in the standings. So, I think guys on the field, it’s hard to have the mindset of, ‘We’re out, I’m just going to go through the motions.’ It’s almost impossible at this level. Every time you get on the field you want to have a good day, you want to be successful, so I think that’s the mindset that we’ll continue to have, regardless of where we are in the standings.”

Jiménez on whether the Orioles still have a shot at the playoffs: “Yeah, of course. I think the thing is we have a chance, so as a player we just have to come in every day and be ready to play without thinking about anything. It’s just, let’s go one game at a time just to see where it’s going to take us.”

Showalter on Jiménez: “He was good. Ubaldo was down in the zone. Had command, had good tempo to him. Had a big strikeout his last hitter, because that was probably going to be his last hitter.

“Darren (O’Day) pitched well and Zach did a heck of a job in two real tough situations. Showed why he is who he is, and Beck had a big blow for us, and we scored some runs off a really good pitcher.”

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