Aaron Judge’s two-homer game not enough to beat lowly Orioles

Aaron Judge is going to get paid. It might not be from the Yankees, and it might not be as much as, say, Mookie Betts is paid, but it’s going to be an obscene amount of money.

“Just trying to do my job like everyone else in this building,” Judge said.

Added Gerrit Cole of Judge: “He’s just better.”

Unfortunately for Judge, his two-homer effort on Monday night wasn’t enough to beat the Orioles. Cole, who already received the type of record-setting free agent contract that might be in store for Judge, was not sharp enough to hold down Baltimore’s uninspiring lineup. And the Orioles beat the Yankees, 6-4, with Cole on the hook for five runs.

“Just a peculiar night,” Cole said afterward. “Definitely a lot of credit to them. Stuff didn’t fall our way, but they also did a great job with whatever they were trying to do.”

The Yankees’ ace was bested by Orioles’ starter Jordan Lyles, who, by Wins Above Replacement, is the worst pitcher of the last six years (over a min. 500 innings). Apart from Judge’s two homers, Lyles allowed only three other hits. He got pulled from the game before he was able to face Judge for a fourth time. Orioles’ manager Brandon Hyde wisely summoned Felix Bautista from the bullpen for Judge’s seventh-inning plate appearance.

Bautista ended up walking Judge with two outs and the O’s clinging to a one-run lead, but that’s much better than serving up a gopher ball that would have put the Yankees ahead. Instead, Anthony Rizzo moved up to second and Judge took his base at first while Bautista focused on Giancarlo Stanton. His first pitch to Stanton was 100 miles per hour, but called a ball, and a mound visit from catcher Robinson Chirinos seemed to help Bautista cross the difficult inning’s finish line. He eventually eliminated Stanton with a venomous slider below the knees, thwarting the Yankees’ final legitimate chance at stealing a win.

Once Stanton went down to end the seventh, the Yankees were left with a depleted lineup searching for the tying run. DJ LeMahieu started Monday on the bench after playing both games of Sunday’s doubleheader, including 18 innings of defense, in extreme heat, and Joey Gallo, Kyle Higashioka and Josh Donaldson were all on the COVID IL.

The Yankees had Gleyber Torres, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Aaron Hicks in the four, five, and six spots. When they went down sequentially to end the eighth inning, it was up to Estevan Florial, LeMahieu — who unsuccessfully pinch hit for Jose Trevino — and Marwin Gonzalez in the ninth. Florial’s leadoff walk set the door slightly ajar, but Gonzalez meekly grounded into a double play that ended things before the lineup could turn over.

Lyles threw an uncommonly high 117 pitches in his 6.2 innings before bowing out for Bautista. Cole nearly matched him, racking up 110 with 11 strikeouts over eight innings that ultimately got him a loss, his first of the season (4-1 in nine starts), and came just five days after beating these same O’s.

“It’s unfortunate,” Cole said. “There were seven really nice innings, so it’s tough. It’s an undesirable result, but at the same time we’re sitting here frustrated about less than a handful of pitches.”

The man who drove the stake through Cole’s heart on Monday, 190-pound infielder Ramon Urias, was slashing .207/.258/.298 entering the game and had never recorded an extra base hit against Cole in five previous chances. But Yankee Stadium has a funny way of turning even the lightest banjo hitters into home run threats. Urias’ homer off Cole that broke the tie in the top of the sixth went 364 feet at a 27 degree launch angle. It’s only a home run in half of Major League Baseball’s stadiums, but Yankee Stadium is absolutely one of them.

A loss is never good. A loss to the Orioles is even worse. A loss to the Orioles when Cole goes eight innings and gets two bombs from Judge in support is nearly unthinkable. But as the radio voice of the Yankees is so fond of saying, that’s baseball. A sac fly from Chirinos in the ninth tacked on one extra run for the Birds to play with and from arguably the most unlikely source in the league, the Yankees were presented with their third straight L, the first time this season they’ve lost three times in a row.

“A little bit of adversity,” Cole remarked. “I don’t know if the road is blocked. No one’s going to feel sorry for us, everybody goes through patches like this, and hey, it could get turned around tomorrow.”