Yankees sock Orioles early to begin 4-game series with 7-2 win

NEW YORK — Of course, the Orioles would have liked this to have gone differently, and as they ponder what occurred in the hours between Friday night’s loss and Saturday’s matinee at Yankee Stadium, their minds will drift to little moments that made big messes.

To left-hander Cade Povich, this all came down to a three-batter sequence in the second inning. To the hitters in Baltimore’s lineup, the three hits managed against right-hander Will Warren and three relievers could’ve been more — a different approach here, some luck there.

“It’s baseball; it’s the game,” said infielder Blaze Alexander, who recorded one of those three hits. He was answering a question as to why this team appears disjointed at times on the field. There isn’t one easy answer. It certainly wasn’t solved Friday night in a 7-2 loss against the Yankees to begin a four-game series.

Like most of his teammates, Alexander expressed confidence in what is to come, and there are three more games here at Yankee Stadium this weekend and Monday. The outcomes of those could render this defeat a mere footnote in a valiant blossoming of better baseball.

“There’s no doubt in my mind,” Alexander said. “I think, every hitter in this clubhouse, we want to do better, and we’re going to do better. Yeah, man, keep fighting, man.”

They can only say that. Keep fighting they must. Thus far, as the calendar has flipped to the second full month of this marathon of a season, the fighting has yielded little reward.

This series in New York always seemed to be a pivotal one, even when the schedule released. These four games come during a span of 15 games in 14 days. At the back end of this stretch, New York (21-11) visits Baltimore (15-17). These games count for more, in a sense, because of the intradivision implications — and losses here stack up quickly, allowing one team or another to build an advantage in the East.

As the Orioles got out to a middling start to the year, entering Yankee Stadium this weekend a game below .500, this matchup became even more intriguing. Could Baltimore hang with the American League’s best?

No AL team has gotten off to a better start than the Yankees, and that start extended to the blitz against Povich early in this series opener. It could’ve been much different, though.

“It boils down to, really, those three at-bats,” Povich said. “I think I’m happy with everything outside of those three. It just, I think, boils down to executing at the right time.”

The three plate appearances to which Povich is referring came in the second inning with two outs. He left a fastball up to Trent Grisham, allowing a double. He walked Paul Goldschmidt on four pitches. And then he hung a slider to Ben Rice, who deposited that ball in right field for the game-altering three-run home run.

“I think that inning very well could’ve been 2-1,” Povich said, referring to the score after José Caballero thundered a solo shot down the left field line earlier in the frame.

The damage came with two outs in the first inning, as well. Aaron Judge’s walk allowed Cody Bellinger to bat, and Bellinger ripped a line drive to right field. As it banged off the wall, outfielder Dylan Beavers struggled to scoop it cleanly, and that added time may have been the difference in Judge scoring all the way from first. The relay throw home was a fraction of a second late.

“Just execution,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “Big misses [are] not what we usually have been seeing from Povich his last couple starts. But big misses with the curveball and the heater and, ultimately, he had to throw it kind of out over the plate. Just wasn’t executing the way he normally does.”

The best thing Povich did was complete four innings, and after him right-hander Albert Suárez provided length out of the bullpen. They kept the Orioles in the game, at least conceptionally if not in practice, until New York scratched a run off Suárez in the seventh.

Most of Baltimore’s offense came on one swing from Pete Alonso. As his deep fly towered to right field and cleared the short porch by a long distance, a Mets fan wearing an Alonso T-shirt ripped off his flannel and began helicoptering it above his head.

Alonso is loved in a borough not far to the southeast, across the East River in Queens. He spent his entire career as a Mets player before joining the Orioles over the winter. Before the series opener, Alonso held court in the bowels of Yankee Stadium. He answered questions from the New York media for 13 minutes — most of them about his reflections on his time as a Met and how his path to Baltimore materialized.

“Two things can be true at once,” Alonso said. He loved the Mets. He loves the Orioles. He worked his way out of directly addressing the Mets’ disappointing start — he’s focused on Baltimore’s disappointing start — and he expressed gratitude to a city that welcomed him while expressing gratitude for the welcome he has received in Baltimore with his next sentence.

A home run in his first at-bat back in New York seemed fitting. It tied the game and gave the Orioles a fresh start.

“It doesn’t matter where they go as long as they either find grass or seat,” Alonso said. “I’m just trying to take good swings on my pitches and obviously happy to get that one. Just feel really good, feel really good in my at-bats. Happy to hit hard and have quality at-bats throughout the game.”

But then the Yankees just kept passing the baton in the second inning, and this one felt out of reach quickly.

The Orioles have three more games here to put this right. If their season thus far is anything to go by, a dismal game can lead to an excellent one, and vice versa. Baltimore, if nothing else, has been predictably unpredictable.

Or the Orioles will find themselves sucker punched, with an injured list that seems to gather new occupants daily and a record that is on the wrong side of .500.

In a quiet clubhouse after this loss, however, the company line was one of confidence. After all, saying is believing.

“I put us against anyone, truly,” Alexander said. “The Yankees, you know, good relievers, funky angles, high-velo guys. But it’s nothing that these guys in here, nothing that we don’t train for. I’d put us up against anyone.”

This article has been updated.