Gray's terrible outing, Yankee's nonexistent offense result in loss to O's

I’m just going to come right out and say it: today’s game was absolutely brutal. It was the first game all year that I legitimately shut off because I was so annoyed. The ending score, Orioles 7, Yankees 5, doesn’t nearly tell the whole story. This game had a little of everything that has annoyed everyone about the Yankees this year; bad starting pitching from Sonny Gray, inability to hit with runners in scoring position, and overall just a lack of effort from the team as a whole. Let’s get into it.

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First off, oh boy was Sonny Gray bad. And it was all basically in one inning. He actually looked pretty dominant in the first inning, striking out Tim Beckham and Adam Jones. The second inning, however, may have been the worst inning of the year for the Yankees. Danny Valencia started it off with a single to center, Davis walked, and Mancini singled to left to plate the first run. With runners on first and second, Caleb Joseph then attempted to bunt, and Gleyber was late covering first, allowing Joseph to reach. The next batter, Renato Nunez, lined a double over the head of Shane Robinson in right, who came in on the ball originally, and then had to run further back. Two runs scored, giving the O’s a 3-0 lead. After a strikeout of Breyvic Valera (great name), Tim Beckham singled to center to drive in two more runs. Seven batters, five hits, one walk, all on SEVENTEEN pitches. That right there just shows Gray didn’t have it. Every pitch he threw was getting smacked around. Gray managed to get out of the inning on a Jones line drive double play, but it wasn’t pretty.

What’s even more unbelievable is that Gray actually started the third inning. He proceeded to get two outs before allowing a homer to Mancini, a walk to Joseph, and a single to Nunez before Boone FINALLY took him out. His final line: 2.2 IP, 8 H, 7 R, 2 BB, 3 K. His worst start of the year, in my opinion. The Orioles are the worst team in baseball who just traded away their two best hitters, and you still can’t get out of the third? Awful. The bottom of the third inning was the only 1-2-3 inning for the Yanks, yet they only managed two runs before Mike Wright coughed up a three run shot to Gleyber in the ninth. The team as a whole looked entirely disinterested in playing after Gray’s dud outing. What an awful, awful game.

On the other side of the ball, the Yankees offense was just as worse. Facing Alex Cobb, who has quite possibly been the worst pitcher in baseball this year, they managed a grand total of one run: a solo shot by Gleyber. The team as a whole left TEN runners on base, and some of those were gifts. The O’s made back to back errors on grounders by Andujar and Romine in the fourth inning, and Shane Robinson proceeded to ground into a double play to end that inning. The Yanks had the first four men reach base in the eighth, and Romine struck out while Walker grounded into another double play.

Shoutout to Lance Lynn, who saved the Yankee bullpen by throwing 4.1 innings of scoreless relief, the longest scoreless relief outing by any Yankee in 2018. That and Gleyber’s two homers were the only two highlights of the game. Let’s hope they play better against the Red Sox this weekend.

Article by: Alex Weir

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