NEW YORK — Anthony Rizzo continues to show why, once the Yankees failed in their attempt at trading for Oakland’s Matt Olson, he was their top choice on the free-agent market to fill their needs at first base.
Riding the first three-homer game of Rizzo’s career, the Yankees beat the Orioles, 12-8, Tuesday night at the Stadium.
The lefty-swinging Rizzo, who leads the majors in homers with eight, hit a three-run homer in the third inning, a two-run shot in the fifth inning and a solo blast in the eighth, which came after a solo blast by Aaron Judge, pushing the Yankees’ lead to 12-8.
The Yankees (11-6), winners of four straight, also got a solo homer by Joey Gallo and saw Luis Severino take a no-hitter into the sixth inning. They’ve won six of their last seven after dropping a weekend series in Baltimore April 15-17.
The Yankees totaled 13 hits, getting the three from Rizzo, as well as two apiece from DJ LeMahieu, Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Gleyber Torres’ added a bases-clearing triple in a four-run seventh that turned a 6-4 lead into a 10-4 advantage.
The Orioles (6-11) managed seven hits, one of them a three-run shot by Austin Hays off Jonathan Loaisiga, who replaced an ineffective Lucas Luetge in a four-run eighth that made it 10-8.
Rizzo cracked a three-run shot in the third off Jordan Lyles for a 3-0 lead and, after Gallo made it 4-0 in the fourth, the first baseman hit a two-run blast in the fifth, also against Lyles, to make it 6-0.
Severino (2-0), who came in with a 2.08 ERA, was brilliant over five innings, a two-out walk to Hays in the fifth inning the only blemish on his scorecard to that point.
But Jorge Mateo, a former Yankee, singled with one out in the sixth and, after Cedric Mullins walked, Anthony Santander poked a first-pitch changeup just over the wall in left to make it 6-3. Severino retired two straight and came back out for the seventh but was replaced by Clay Holmes after a leadoff double by Rougned Odor, a Yankee last season. Holmes allowed the inherited runner to score – which made it 6-4 – closing the book on Severino, who pitched far better than his final line. Severino allowed four runs, three hits and two walks over six innings-plus in which he struck out five.
The Yankees added on in the bottom half with Stanton delivering an RBI single and Torres lining a bases-loaded triple into the gap in left-center to make it 10-4.
Before the game, manager Aaron Boone bristled a bit at the suggestion his team hasn’t beaten up on the Orioles the last year-plus the way they should have.
“The amount of declarative statements that happen early in the season never ceases to amaze me,” Boone said.
But the Orioles were a significant pain to the Yankees last season, going 8-11 vs. them in what was a 52-110 regular season. Three of those victories over the Yankees came in September when they lost a tiebreaker to the Red Sox to host the AL wild-card. The AL East champion Rays, by comparison, went 18-1 vs. Baltimore in 2021.
Couple that with the Yankees dropping two of three in Baltimore less than two weeks ago, a familiar, and not especially welcome, narrative regarding the 2022 Yankees started to develop.
“You want to win the American League East? You’ve got to be a beast for 162 games,” Boone said before Tuesday’s game. “Every day, if last year taught us anything, it’s that if we don’t play our best, I don’t care who we’re playing, it’s going to be hard for us to win. We feel when we are at our best, we can beat anyone. These are important inter division games. The Orioles are playing well…they got the best of us in Baltimore last week, hopefully we can return the favor.”
