NEW YORK – The rain, wind and cold didn’t matter. Aaron Judge’s pursuit of a home run record and the hostile reaction from fans denied it also didn’t matter.

The Orioles didn’t bus into the Bronx for three days to stake out their place in history. They wanted to win the series. They wanted an 82^nd victory and assurances that they’d finish on the right side of .500.

Gunnar Henderson drew a bases-loaded walk off Aroldis Chapman in the seventh inning to break a tie, Bryan Baker registered his 10^th scoreless appearance in a row by retiring all six batters faced and the Orioles defeated the Yankees 3-1 before an announced crowd of 45,332 to guarantee their first winning record since 2016 with three games to play at home.

"I think it's an accomplishment definitely from where we came from last year, 30 win difference, and still got a few games to go," said manager Brandon Hyde. "Proud of our guys with the season they've had."

Dillon Tate notched his fifth save with an uneventful ninth inning.

The Orioles have four games left in the 2022 season as they continue to seek at least one more win to achieve their first winning season since going 89-73 in 2016.

Today they play the final road game of this series and road trip, and the final road game of the season. They can win the series with a victory today. They are 2-4 on this road trip and 37-43 on the season in road games. They are 10-13-2 in their road series this year.

The Orioles beat the Yankees 2-1 on Friday night, holding New York to four hits as Jordan Lyles pitched seven innings and the O’s got one each from Félix Bautista and DL Hall, who recorded his first MLB save. But Saturday, the Orioles were held to three hits in an 8-0 loss to New York.

The Orioles were shutout for the second time in 13 games, the fourth in 26 games, the 11^th time on the season and the third time by the Yankees, who also pitched shutouts against Baltimore on May 25 and July 24.

New York pitchers recorded their 16th shutout of the season. The game marked just the second time in the last 44 seasons, since 1979, that the Yankees have recorded as many shutouts in a year. They also had 16 in 1998. Yankees batters homered twice Saturday and they lead MLB with 246 home runs. That number is their third-most in a single season in franchise history, trailing only the 306 in 2019 and 267 in 2018.

Having too many good players is not really a problem for any major league club. As we look down the road a year or two at the Orioles infield, it is starting to get crowded between players we’ve already seen in Baltimore and players on the way.

Of the current top 18 players on the O’s top 30 prospects list via MLBPipeline.com, nine are infielders, and seven of the nine have played at least as high as Double-A already. The depth is strong.

Gunnar Henderson, at least for now, is still prospect eligible and is the club’s No. 1 prospect with Jackson Holliday at No. 3, Jordan Westburg No. 5, Coby Mayo No. 7, Connor Norby No. 11, Max Wagner No. 15, Darell Hernaiz No. 16, Joey Ortiz No 17 and César Prieto No. 18.

Only four players can start on the infield each day, they tell me.

How will the Orioles handle this? Will there be trades? Will any of these players have to move positions?

The New York Yankees (65-31), who own the best record in the majors, have lost just five series all year, one already against the Orioles. The O's can win a second series this season versus the Yankees if they take the series finale today at Oriole Park.

After Friday's 7-6 loss to New York, the Orioles fell behind 3-0 after four innings last night. But they rallied to beat the Yankees 6-3, scoring two runs each in the fifth, seventh and eighth innings.

Baltimore's two-run fifth pulled them within 3-2, the two-run seventh put them ahead and the Ramón Urías two-run homer in the eighth added some big-time late insurance runs.

Batting No. 8 and No. 9, Urías and Jorge Mateo combined to go 5-for-8 with four runs and three RBIs.

The Orioles have won 12 of their last 15, 17 of 25 and 23 of the last 35 games. They are now 26-18 at home and are 9-1 their past 10 home games.

Earlier this season, when he wasn’t a hitter on a heater, the Orioles' Ramón Urías, had you interviewed him then, would have expressed complete confidence in his offense and that his stats would soon come around.

This was when his OPS was .648 at the end of May. The underlying data about his contact rates, exit velocity and other numbers told him he was doing some good things. Just not getting consistently good results.

And now that has changed.

“I just stayed confident,” he said this morning in the Baltimore clubhouse. “I was trusting what I was doing and I was feeling good. Didn’t have a ton of luck. But I just stayed positive and kept working. I stayed focused and things are going well right now.

“I mean I was talking with our hitting coach and Ryan (Fuller) told me then, ‘You’re doing well.’ Sometimes you can’t control it all but he said I was hitting the ball good and my expected batting average was up there. He said, ‘Don’t worry and good things are going to happen.’ That is what he was telling me and at some point they are going to match during the season.”

It was set up for the Orioles' ninth walk-off win of the year. They trailed by one run and had come from four runs back to get that close on Anthony Santander’s stirring three-run shot off Aroldis Chapman in the seventh. A 7-3 deficit was now 7-6 and the top of the order was coming up for Baltimore.

But it didn’t happen this time.

Adley Rutschman’s infield single put the winning run in the box but right-hander Clay Holmes got Trey Mancini and Santander to hold on for a Yankees win and push the O’s back a game under the .500 mark at 46-47.

So the Orioles are now 1-3 at the start of a 10-game stretch against Tampa Bay and New York. But the three losses have come by one, two and one run. They are right there against two AL East powers and yet being close is not good enough. It shows the guts and character the Orioles have but won’t help keep them in the American League playoff race. Maybe the Orioles are just not ready to stay in the race and that wouldn’t be a shocker. The shocker will be if they can hang around deep into this season.

But it was a down-to-the-last pitch game against the team with the best record in the majors. And the Orioles' ability to hang with the best teams can’t be questioned at this point.

When the Orioles made a series of minor league promotions on Monday, one was certainly no big surprise. Cuban-born infielder César Prieto, signed as part of the latest O’s international class in January, moved up from high Single-A Aberdeen to Double-A Bowie.

There he will join a talented infield that already includes ranked prospects in Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg and Joey Ortiz. But the Orioles feel Prieto deserved to move up and certainly can co-exist on that roster where the first three players mentioned all have starts at multiple infield spots.

Henderson: 22 at third, 13 at short.
Westburg: 12 at second, 12 at third, 11 at short.
Ortiz: 17 at second, 13 at short, two at third.

Prieto, 23, hit .340/.381/.619/ with an OPS of 1.000 in 25 games with Aberdeen. He returned back to their active roster on May 11 after missing about 10 days with a right hamstring strain. As of Monday, Prieto led the O’s farm in batting average, slugging and OPS. He has six doubles, seven homers and 20 RBIs.

It's been a torrid hitting start for a player that some felt could move fast through the system because of his previous experience in the Cuban professional leagues.

When the Orioles hosted the Yankees in mid-April they won two of three in the series, allowing six total runs. But first-place New York is playing much better ball this series in Baltimore. With a win this afternoon, the Yankees would complete a four-game sweep of the Orioles.

New York won 6-2 Monday night and has now posted two straight one-run wins, by 5-4 and 3-2 scores.

The Orioles (14-24) have lost six in a row and seven of their past eight games. They fell behind 3-0 in the first inning last night and are 4-20 when their opponent scores first. The Yankees (28-9) are now 19-2 when they score first in the game.

The Orioles are 2-7 and have lost six in a row to the Yankees since that first series at Camden Yards. They are now 9-10 at home, 5-7 in one-run games and 4-11 versus the AL East.

The O’s offense has produced just eight runs on 19 hits in this series. Baltimore batters have scored two runs or less six times in the past eight games. In those eight games, they have scored 15 runs total and have gone 4-for-40 with runners in scoring position.

Captain Obvious has been busy this season, giving me a steady stream of calls and notes. The latest was to remind me that the Orioles may be an improved team but are not yet at the point they can be missing several key players and still consistently win.

The Captain is right again.

The Orioles were without Ryan Mountcastle and Austin Hays in Detroit and Jorge Mateo left yesterday’s game in the fourth inning. They lost 5-1 and scored just three runs over the weekend. They scored in just two of 27 innings. That will not cut it.

The offense with Hays and Mountcastle was trending up, scoring 33 runs over a six-game stretch. But they have followed that by scoring seven runs over the past five games.

The Captain said that means the offense has been inconsistent.

OAKLAND – The Orioles will play in Oakland tonight to start a 10-game road trip that will take them to both coasts and produce series against the Athletics, Angels and Yankees. It will be challenging, but at least they start it on a high note after Sunday’s 5-0 shutout win over the Yankees in Baltimore.

If you were among the large number of fans wondering how much longer they could go without getting clutch hits, the answer was seven more innings as Sunday’s game began. But after going 3-for-30 in the three games before yesterday with runners in scoring position and 7-for-77 for the year through eight games, they finally came through.

And it was the oft-criticized Rougned Odor whose two-run single opened the floodgates, so to speak, and the Orioles got three straight hits with RISP after being 7-for-83 for the year as Odor stood in to pinch-hit in the eighth of a 0-0 tie.

The Orioles beat the Yankees in the series, also winning in 11 innings Friday night. Who knows what might have happened this weekend at the Yard without the hail on Saturday night, which altered the O’s pitching plans.

Speaking of pitching, since Friday, when we pretty much found out lefty John Means would be out for a significant period of time, O’s starters have allowed one earned run. So far – yes, in the smallest of samples – they stepped up.