'Great feeling': O's win first NY set since '19

Putting it kindly, wins in the Bronx have been nothing more than sporadic for the Orioles over the past few years. None of that history mattered on Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, however, when Baltimore, hoping to play spoiler for more than one division rival this month, staged a comeback against New York that led to an 8-7 win.

By topping the Yanks in the finale, the Orioles captured a series win at Yankee Stadium for the first time since the opening series of 2019 -- Brandon Hyde’s first as Baltimore’s manager. The O’s are now 6-16 in the Bronx since the start of that season.

“It just kind of goes back to us having faith in each other,” Cedric Mullins said of the series win. “We always felt like we were very competitive, it just didn't show at times and we had pretty bad stretches at the same time. To come in and play well with the pressure on [in] tie games and come out on top is a great feeling.”

Despite their poor overall record (43-92), the Orioles’ mark against the Yankees this year is respectable. They’re 7-9 vs. the Yanks -- their most wins against a single opponent this year. Sixteen percent of Baltimore’s wins on the season have come against New York, which finished Sunday with a 7 1/2-game deficit in the AL East. The math is telling.

The O’s comeback was compacted into two innings. They were down by three in the sixth when Mullins connected with a two-run homer off Albert Abreu, narrowing Baltimore’s deficit to 5-4.

The homer was a milestone and put Mullins in elite company in Orioles history. The center fielder joined Don Baylor and Reggie Jackson as the only three players to hit 25 homers and steal 25 bases in a single season. Baylor hit 25 homers and stole 32 bases in 1975; Jackson logged 27 big flies and 28 steals the following year. Mullins has 25 home runs and 26 swipes -- the 26th of which came after he walked to lead off the game -- with around three weeks of play remaining.

“It's crazy,” Mullins said. “To be told that it's been a solid minute since someone has come around and put together a 25-25 season … I'm just out there putting my all every single day, and the results show us it's a pretty amazing feeling.”

A mental error by the opposition enabled Mullins to reach this milestone. The Orioles had two outs in that frame when Kelvin Gutierrez sent a ground ball -- playable and not hit particularly hard -- directly toward Yankees shortstop Gleyber Torres, who seemed to miscalculate the speed of the Orioles’ third baseman. Torres took an extra step while transferring the ball from his glove and threw what looked more like a lob than a laser to first. Gutierrez was safe by a step.

“I want to give our player credit for hitting a routine grounder to short and busting it down the line and beating it,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “That could have been an easy 80 percent down the first-base line, because he hit a ground ball to short, but he didn't. He jail-breaked, and he went as hard as he could and beat the throw.”

The next batter, Mullins, took the fifth pitch from Abreu, an 89 mph changeup, and sent it 363 feet to right.

“I give all the credit to Gutierrez,” Mullins said. “There's no telling if I have the opportunity to face the same guy next inning. It was hustle that allowed that to be. I’m probably going to give him a big hug after this.”

Those runs proved valuable one inning later, when the Orioles seized on their best chance to win this game by exploiting a tired Yankees bullpen. The Yanks needed length from starter Corey Kluber and reliever Andrew Heaney. They got neither. Kluber exited with two outs in the fourth, and Heaney -- who piggybacked with Kluber in the righty’s first start off the IL -- lasted one out, allowing four earned runs in the seventh. Gutierrez drove in the go-ahead run to cap the rally, bringing home Jahmai Jones with a single.

That left it up to two O’s relievers to close out the eighth and ninth innings. Tanner Scott yielded a base hit to DJ LeMahieu but was otherwise unscathed. Tyler Wells faced the meat of the Yankees’ order -- Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo -- and retired all three.

Wells threw 12 pitches, 10 for strikes, for his first career save.

“We did a lot of really good things in this series; had a chance to win all three games,” Hyde said. “I was really happy with how we came back, being down 4-1.”

The skipper would welcome a slightly less stressful path to victory, though.

“I let our guys know, ‘It’s OK to win 7-2 once in a while,’” Hyde joked.