Hail the Yankees as They Win in Baltimore

Cliché Alert: In baseball, you never know when you're going to see something you've never seen before.

Last night, in the middle game of a 3-game visiting series for the Yankees at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, I saw something I'd never seen before: A baseball game interrupted by the falling of hailstones.

The Yankees were trailing the Orioles 2-0 with 1 out in the bottom of the 5th. Had the Orioles gotten 2 more outs before this happened, it would have been an official game, and, with the Yankees' luck, it might have been called and the Orioles the official winners.

Anyway, the YES Network cameras picked up what looked, at first, like rain. Then broadcaster Michael Kay suggested that the rain looked "chunky." A moment later, he suggested it was actually hail, and he turned out to be right.

It reminded me of Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent routine on The Tonight Show:

A: Hail, Caesar.

Q: What's that stuff coming out of the sky, Cleopatra?

The umpires halted play, and the Camden Yards grounds crew reacted as if it was rain, getting the mini-tarps onto the pitcher's mound and the home plate area very quickly, with the main tarp to follow.

Up to that point, it looked like it would be another game in which the Yankees simply didn't hit. The Aarons, Hicks and Judge, led off the game with singles, but the Yankees couldn't score. They loaded the bases in the 3rd, and got nothing out of it. Just before the delay, Hicks drew a 1-out walk. Once the delay began, I figured that was it: Any chance of this turning into a rally was gone.

Certainly, given Brian Cashman's idiotic pitching philosophy Aaron Boone's curious pitching predilections, Jameson Taillon would not still be pitching if the game were resumed. He gave up a 2-run home run to Cedric Mullins in the 3rd, but had otherwise pitched well.

The hail turned to rain within 5 minutes, and the delay lasted about 45 minutes. Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, the Yankees came back out smoking: The "rain" had been chunky, and the Yankees got funky.

Judge drew a walk, Anthony Rizzo singled Hicks home, and Giancarlo Stanton hit a double that scored Judge, although Rizzo was thrown out at the plate. (I thought he was out when it happened, but the plate umpire ruled him safe, the Orioles asked for a review, and the call was correctly reversed.) The next man up was Josh Donaldson, and he crushed one into the bleachers, making it 4-2 Yankees.

If Rizzo had stopped at 3rd on Stanton's double, it would have been 5-2. With these Yankees, the thought that such a mistake would come back to haunt us was in the front of the mind.

Taillon was sent out to pitch the bottom of the 5th. He got an out, then allowed a single. He got a 2nd out, then allowed a walk. That's when Boone took him out, denying him the chance to be the winning pitcher. JP Sears -- like CC Sabathia, John Patrick does not use periods for his initials -- in only his 2nd major league appearance, walked the bases loaded, before getting out of the inning without allowing a run.

The Yankees added a run in the 6th, and Sears, Michael King, and Clay Holmes took the worry about Rizzo's failure to score away. Yankees 5, Orioles 2. WP: Sears (1-0, his 1st major league win). SV: Holmes (1). LP: Travis Lakins (0-1).

The series concludes this afternoon, with the first pitch scheduled for 1:05. Nestor Cortes is listed as the Yankees' starter, and Bruce Zimmerman for Baltimore. Happy Easter.