Montgomery Can't Ward Off Orioles

The Yankees are 3-10 this season in series finales, 19-8 in all other games. Sounds to me like they get cocky, or complacent.

Jordan Montgomery started the finale of the 3-game series against at Camden Yards, and Montgomery couldn't ward off the Baltimore Orioles. Not even when he was gifted a 4-0 lead before he even took the mound. That lead included back-to-back home runs by Gary Sanchez and Clint Frazier.

Remember how, for most of the season thus far, the Yankees simply couldn't score in the 1st inning? This time, they got 4 runs, and it wasn't enough. Montgomery gave 2 of them right back in the bottom of the 1st. 

In the 3rd inning, Aaron Judge does what he does best: Hit a home run against the Orioles. It was now 5-2. A lot of people don't realize this, but -- unless you count the Mets, and, as a team in the other League, you shouldn't, nor the Philadelphia Phillies for that matter -- the Orioles are, distance-wise, the Yankees' closest opponent, a few miles nearer in their direction than the Boston Red Sox are in the other.

As Arsenal fans can tell you, when you take a 5-2 lead over your closest rivals, you have to hold it.

Monty didn't. (I tried to work in a pun on his name, but I found nothing satisfying with "Monty Python," "Monty Hall," "Monte Cassino" or "Monte Cristo." So I went with the old department store chain, Montgomery Ward.) He let the Orioles tie the game 5-5 in the bottom of the 3rd. In 3 innings, he allowed 5 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks. Sloppy.

Michael King came in to pitch the 4th, and he allowed a run, which eventually made him, officially, the losing pitcher, which fits with the rules, but wasn't really fair to him. Of the 5 pitchers the Yankees used in this game, only Lucas Luetge allowed no runs, and he only pitched 1 inning (the 6th). Wandy Peralta and Luis Cessa each allowed 2 runs.

The Yankees managed to tack on a run in the 9th, but it was too little, too late. Orioles 10, Yankees 6. WP: Bruce Zimmerman (2-3). No save. LP: King (0-1). So, on this roadtrip, that's 2 out of 3 in Tampa Bay, 2 out of 3 in Baltimore, and in each case, it was the last game of the series that the Yankees lost.

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Overall, about a quarter of the way into the season -- as my junior high school guidance counselor used to say, "Yeah, Mike, the days are long, but the years are short" -- the Yankees are now 22-18, 2 games behind the hated Red Sox in the American League Eastern Division, 1 in the loss column.

Tonight, the Yankees begin a 4-game series away to the Texas Rangers. Due to the way the COVID-forced schedule worked last year, this will be the Yankees' 1st visit to Globe Life Field, the warehouse-looking, retractable-roofed, artificially-turfed stadium the Rangers opened last season.

Despite the Rangers having one of the worst records in baseball, COVID protocols led MLB to select their new stadium as the site of not just National League Playoff games (guaranteeing it as a neutral site), but the World Series (given the Rangers' ineptitude, all but guaranteeing it as a neutral site), which the Los Angeles Dodgers won over the Tampa Bay Rays.

This makes Globe Life Field the 1st American League stadium ever to host a World Series before it hosted the New York Yankees in a regular-season game. Even stadiums that opened in midseason -- the Rogers Centre in Toronto, T-Mobile Park in Seattle -- haven't had that happen.

Late addendum: Prior to tonight’s game, the Yankees placed Giancarlo Stanton on the 10-day Injured List, retroactive to May 14, with a left quad strain; and recalled pitcher Albert Abreu (#84) from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.