BALTIMORE — After the first eight Yankees games of this young season, there were plenty of questions about the offense. Saturday night, the Yankees started finding some answers. Josh Donaldson hit his first home run as a Yankee and the offense rallied for a 5-2 rain-delayed win over the Orioles at Camden Yards.
The Yankees look to take the series on Sunday. They have not lost a series at Camden Yards since September 2020. They will need the offense to keep building on Saturday night if they are going to make that happen.
After going 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position in the first four innings, the Yankees came out and went 3 for 9 with RISP after a 49-minute delay for rain and hail. Aaron Hicks had two hits and a walk. Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Jose Trevino each had two hits as well.
Donaldson not only smashed his first homer of the season, but doubled in the eighth as well.
The Yankees went into Saturday night’s game not having shown much change from last season’s inconsistent offense.
They went into Saturday night’s game against the Orioles ranked second in the big leagues in average exit velocity and hard hit percentage, but were still below the league average in OPS (.684), OPS+ (99) and slugging (.376).
They ranked 26th out of 30 in runs scored per game. Their 3.12 runs per game is only better than the Brewers, Diamondbacks and Orioles. They’ve had the sixth most runners left on base with 59 this season and ranked the fifth worst hitters with runners in scoring position, hitting .180. They have the third worst run-scoring percentage in the big leagues, meaning only 20% of their runners who reach base eventually score a run — they are better only than the Orioles and Diamondbacks.
Another bad habit that seems to have carried over from last season is their penchant for grounding into double plays; they are second in the majors with nine so far. Last season, the Yankees were second in the big leagues with 154 GDPs, the most in the American League.
“I just think we’re better. I think we’re better overall,” Aaron Boone said Friday night when asked about the team falling back into bad habits. “And I think that’s going to manifest itself. Obviously, we want to be better than 2 for 11, but that wasn’t the problem [Friday night]. We didn’t get enough of anything tonight. That’s, 11 innings, seven hits, maybe. I don’t know how many walks we had. So it was just that we didn’t have a very good offensive night. That’s what we got to turn the page from. I’m confident in our guys that we will get it rolling.”
That confidence paid off.
After the delay, the Yankees came out and found some offense. They returned with Hicks on first base, one out and Aaron Judge at bat. The Yankees slugger worked a walk after falling behind 0-2. Anthony Rizzo drove in Hicks with a ground-ball single to right field. He then tried to score on Stanton’s double, but was called out at the plate on review.
Donaldson crushed his first home run as a Yankee deep into right-center field 403 feet to give the Yankees a 4-2 lead. It was also the first home run the Orioles have allowed at Camden Yards this season.
Trevino, who had two hits including a double, scored on a wild pitch in the sixth.
The Orioles took a 2-0 lead in the third on Cedric Mullins two-run homer off Jameson Taillon. The right-hander allowed just those two runs on three hits. He struck out two and walked one. That walk came after Taillon surprisingly came back to the mound after the rain delay. He gave up a one-out single to Austin Hays and then the two-out walk to No. 9 hitter Anthony Bemboom with Mullins on deck.
J.P. Sears walked Mullins to load the bases, but got out of the jam by coaxing a fly ball out from Ramon Urias. He got into trouble again in the sixth, but Michael King came in to get the Yankees out of it. King gave the Yankees two scoreless innings.
