Baltimore Orioles upset New York Yankees
On paper, this match had blowout written all over it. It seemed highly improbable that the New York Yankees, who sit atop in the American League East with the best record in the majors, would lose to a team who currently sits dead last in the AL division and has the second worst record in baseball only to Pittsburgh.
And that’s why the Yankees are so frustrated after Monday's 4-3 loss to the Orioles at Yankee Stadium. Monday's win improves the Orioles to 20-13 under manager Buck Showalter and is Baltimore's first victory this season in the Bronx, and moves them to just 22-45 on the road.
"Since they got the new manager over there, they've got a different style of play," Yankees outfielder Nick Swisher said admiringly. "They pitched a little differently [on Monday], a lot more offspeed."
While it would be nice to say that this was a total team effort, the Orioles would not be celebrating their third consecutive victory against an American League East opponent without the services of Brian Roberts.
Roberts was too much for the Yankees’ starting pitcher A.J. Burnett’s to handle that night, and had a pair of two-out RBI singles to put the Orioles on the board in the third and eventually give them the lead in the seventh.
"You have to be able to put up a zero when your offence scores," Burnett said. "To blow it [two] times, that's pretty much the story of the day." Three of Baltimore's seven hits off Burnett came courtesy of Roberts, who finished 3-for-5 with two RBIs.
“He's a pain. It seems like he always has good at-bats, fouls off tough pitches and gets on base," said Derek Jeter said of Roberts, the two-time All-Star second baseman who was out of the lineup in many matchups between the two squads. "Obviously, they're a different team with him."
Brian Matusz (8-12) picked up the win after yielding three runs on five hits and four strikeouts over six innings. "I felt good. I was throwing a lot of strikes," said Matusz. "I got behind in a couple of counts but I was able to make good pitches when I needed to. We got the clutch hits when we needed to and the bullpen was tremendous again. So it was a great overall team win."
The Yankees had a chance to increase their lead over Tampa Bay in the American League East, but still command a 2.5 game lead over the Rays.
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