– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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BALTIMORE — Like clockwork, the Baltimore Orioles picked up where it left off once again when facing a left-handed pitcher during the early part of the season: futilely whiffing away and making weak contact. But Monday night looked to be something, ahem, special, as the lineup took their usual ineptitude against southpaws to a new level as it didn’t record a hit through the first two-thirds of the game.
Leave it to a person who was not even supposed to be in the lineup, Coby MAyo, to save the Orioles from both ignominy and from the jaws of defeat to give Baltimore a dramatic victory.
Mayo smacked a go-ahead three-run home run in the seventh inning — the second of three hits the Orioles had in the entire game — that lifted Baltimore to a 3-2 win over the New York Yankees inside Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Monday night to start a three-game series between the American League East rivals.
The Orioles came into tonight with an 0-9 record against left-handed starters, who have collectively held Baltimore to a .186 batting average and .569 OPS, and those numbers continued to drop precipitously as Ryan Weathers, a lefty, did not allow a hit in the first six innings. Adley Rutschman singled to break up the no-hit bid to start the seventh, and after a groundout and a nine-pitch walk to Tyler O’Neill put runners on first and second, Weathers was lifted for another lefty, Brent Headrick, even though the Orioles had a series of right-handed batters coming up.
The first of those was Mayo, who launched a 1-1 slider over “Mount Walltimore” and just inside the left-field foul pole for his fourth home run of the season. Mayo was not initially in the starting lineup for tonight, only being inserted just an hour before first pitch after regularly-scheduled designated hitter Samuel Basallo was scratched due to left knee discomfort.
“It feels like I’ve been in that spot a lot over the last three seasons since I’ve been up here and haven’t come through much, as much as I wanted to,” Mayo said. “That was a spot where when I did come through, all that emotion came out, and it just felt really good.”
The Yankees’ offense itself only had five hits, with the first two coming from Ben Rice; his second knock was his 13th homer of the season, a two-run shot that game New York a 2-0 lead in the third inning. Aaron Judge had a double to lead off the sixth inning, and the Yankees last hit, a single by Paul Goldschmidt in the ninth, was erased on the base paths when pinch runner José Caballero was thrown out at second by Rutschman on a stole base attempt to end the game.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Monday evening’s game, with photos taken by staff photographer Dale Horton. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page. Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 30 pictures in total.
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