O's can't crack Yankees in last 2019 chance

BALTIMORE -- When the Orioles left Yankee Stadium in late March, they did so jubilant, early-season winners of two of three hard-fought games against the heavily favored Yankees. When they packed up and headed north Wednesday afternoon, they waved good riddance to the Big Apple until 2020. That opening series aside, they won’t miss it.

That’s because the Yankees spent the rest of 2019 acting historically unfriendly to the rebuilding Orioles, who departed the Bronx having dropped 16 straight to New York after Wednesday's 6-5 defeat. The latest officially eliminated Baltimore from American League East contention and ensured a third straight losing season.

• Box score

“It doesn’t feel great,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “It’s not a good feeling walking out of here having lost that many in a row to them.”

It came courtesy of an uneven start from Dylan Bundy, who was charged with six runs despite retiring 16 of 17 at one point. Gary Sanchez bookended that stretch with a three-run homer in the first and two-out single in the sixth, after which Mike Ford lashed a two-run single off reliever Richard Bleier.

“Just trying to get weak contact and pitching inside more than I have in the past,” Bundy said. “They lean out over the plate all the time, and when you’re making quality pitches and they’re getting homers and singles and doubles off them, you’ve got to get them off the plate with a purpose.”

In between the hits off Bundy, the Orioles created traffic in four of five innings but managed just two runs off winner J.A. Happ, notably stranding the bases loaded against him in the first. That proved even more significant later when Renato Núñez (career-high five hits, two-run double) and Jonathan Villar (two RBIs) helped the Orioles rally for three seventh-inning tallies on Luis Cessa and Adam Ottavino. Nunez’s fifth hit of the afternoon -- on a 102.2-mph Aroldis Chapman fastball -- brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth before Chapman struck out Villar to end the game.

“I like the way we fought today,” Hyde said. “I thought we competed. I loved how we came back. We’re just a little short at times.”

Nunez singled four times and doubled to notch his first five-hit game in the Majors and fourth over parts of nine professional seasons. He is the first Oriole with a five-hit game in exactly three years, since Matt Wieters on Aug. 14, 2016, against the Giants.

“It’s amazing to do it and amazing to do it at Yankee Stadium against such good pitchers,” Nunez said. “Everybody here battles, even if we’re losing by a lot or it’s a game like today. Everybody is in the game, supportive. I think that’s the mindset you have to have for a good team.”

Consider it indicative of the optimistic culture the Orioles have tried to cultivate in preparation for when they are in contention again. If nothing else, their 19-game 2019 slate against the Yankees served as a sobering reminder that it will take time, and that time can sometimes come with shouldering struggles of record proportions.

Their 16-game losing streak vs. New York is the Orioles’ second longest vs. a single opponent since they dropped 17 straight to Cleveland in 1954, their first year in Baltimore. Sanchez’s homer was his 10th in just 14 contests against Baltimore this season -- only Gleyber Torres (13 this year) and Aaron Judge (11 in 2017) have ever compiled more in a season against the O’s. He and Torres became the second pair of teammates to compile double-digit homers against one opponent in the same season, joining Babe Ruth (11) and Lou Gehrig (11) against the 1927 Red Sox. As a team, the Orioles surrendered a MLB-record 61 homers to the Yankees this season.

“We don’t have to play them anymore,’ Bundy said. “So I guess that’s a good thing.”