In the early hours of Saturday morning, Ryan Mountcastle got a text from his dad.
“That sucked.”
The Orioles’ first baseman quickly realized what it meant. With a pinch-hit, walk-off home run from Cal Raleigh, the Seattle Mariners had just mathematically ended Baltimore’s playoff hopes.
About 13 hours later, the Orioles played a game that could largely be summed up by that text message, too. Their first game formally out of postseason contention was an 8-0 loss to the New York Yankees as one-time Orioles left-hander Nestor Cortes struck out 12 in 7 1/3 one-hit innings.
It was a letdown from the night before, when the Orioles (81-77) temporarily staved off elimination with a dramatic 2-1 victory over New York that ensured their first non-losing season since 2016. A Rule 5 draftee that pitched in four games for Baltimore in the 2018 season that sparked the organization’s rebuild, Cortes continued his domination against his former team.
He struck out five of the first six Orioles as the Yankees (97-60) built a 4-0 lead off Austin Voth, including solo home runs from Giancarlo Stanton and Kyle Higashioka. Voth did not allow another run in completing five innings, but the outing still marked the first time since Baltimore claimed him on waivers from Washington that he allowed more than three earned runs. In 22 appearances, 17 of them starts, he had a 3.04 ERA with Baltimore after posting a 10.13 mark as a Nationals reliever.
Cortes, meanwhile, did not allow a hit in the first four innings, with walks to Jorge Mateo and Mountcastle accounting for Baltimore’s lone base runners. Mateo’s two-out single in the fifth ended the no-hit bid. The Orioles threatened to end the shutout with Mountcastle’s single and Adley Rutschman’s double in the ninth, but it only continued their struggles with runners in scoring position.
In seven career appearances against the Orioles, Cortes has a 1.06 ERA, 0.853 WHIP and 51 strikeouts in 34 innings. Both of his career-best 12-strikeout games have come against Baltimore.
As much as Cortes might have frustrated the Orioles’ hitters Saturday, it couldn’t compare to what Baltimore’s pitchers did to the 45,428 fans announced in attendance when it came to how they handled Aaron Judge. With Judge’s 61 home runs tied for the American League single-season record, the Orioles largely avoided the strike zone against the slugger, though it came back to bite them.
Down 2-0 against Judge to open the first, Voth hit the star outfielder to prompt an avalanche of boos, and Judge eventually scored the first of the frame’s three runs. Spenser Watkins opened the seventh by walking Judge on five pitches, with the Yankee Stadium crowd chanting an obscenity toward Watkins in response. Three hits followed as New York doubled its lead. More boos came when Watkins fell behind 3-0 against Judge in the eighth, but he recovered to strike him out to push Judge’s pursuit of history to Sunday’s series finale.
This story will be updated.
ORIOLES@YANKEES
Sunday, 1:35 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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