BALTIMORE — While not laying down any ultimatums, Brian Cashman was blunt.
“The type of baseball that we’re playing is far below this team’s capabilities,” the general manager said a couple of hours before the Yankees started a three-game series against the Orioles. “Enough’s enough.”
Not yet it isn’t.
With their bats quickly reverting to their pre-Sunday night level of productivity and a decent but not good enough performance from Luis Severino, the Yankees dropped their sixth straight, 4-1, to the Orioles Tuesday night in front of 16,083 at Camden Yards.
The last-place Yankees (8-16), third-to-the-bottom of the American League in runs (81) entering the night, managed one run and five hits in seven innings against righthander Chris Tillman. They had seven hits overall.
Tillman, (3-1) walked four and struck out a career-high nine, including three in a perfect seventh, his final inning.
The Yankees did nothing to improve on their .203 average with runners in scoring position, going 1-for-6.
Additionally, one of their few hot hitters of late, Alex Rodriguez, left the game in the eighth inning for a pinch hitter after apparently tweaking his right hamstring running out a ground ball to end the fifth.
He is scheduled to have an MRI on Wednesday.
“It’s definitely worrisome,” manager Joe Girardi said.
Luis Severino (0-4) was better than the 6.86 ERA he hauled into the evening, but committed two little-league caliber errors. The righthander, who allowed four runs — three earned — and five hits in six innings, dropped two throws from Mark Teixeira attempting to cover first base on grounders. The seond of those, occurring in the fourth inning, gave the Orioles (15-10) the lead for good at 2-1.
The second of Mark Trumbo’s two homers, which gave him eight this season, was a two-run blast in the fifth that made it 4-1.
The Yankees had a scoring chance in the first. After leadoff hitter Jacoby Ellsbury flied to center, Brett Gardner doubledoff the wall in right. But A-Rod, with six extra-base hits in his previous five games, flied to right and Teixeira struck out to end the inning.
After Severino worked around a one-out walk in a 22-pitch bottom of the first, the Bombers looked as if they’d come up empty again in the second. Brian McCann worked a leadoff walk and Carlos Beltran singled. Starlin Castro grounded into a 4-6-3 double play, but Didi Gregorius, 1-for-12 on this trip coming in, banged an 0-and-2 curveball to center for an RBI single that made it 1-0.
The Orioles, with a league-leading 34 homers coming in, tied it in the bottom half when Trumbo led off by destroying a 2-and-2, 95-mph fastball that tailed back over the middle of the plate into the seats in left.
Severino did well to keep it there. Matt Wieters followed with a single and Pedro Alvarez walked. Severino got Jonathan Schoop to fly to right and Ryan Flaherty to pop to short and induced what should have been an inning-ending grounder to first off the bat of leadoff man Joey Rickard. But Severino, in covering first, took his eye off Teixeira’s toss to try and find the bag and dropped the ball for an error that loaded the bases. Manny Machado, April’s AL player of the month, bailed Severino out by swinging at the first pitch, an 88-mph slider, and popping it to first. Severino threw 24 pitches in the inning, leaving him at 46 through two.
The Orioles took the lead in the fourth on Severino’s second miscue.
The pitcher retired the first two batters before the righty-hitting Schoop inside-outed a 96-mph fastball down the first- base line for a double. Flaherty followed with a ground smash that Teixeira made a terrific diving stop on to his right. Severino arrived in plenty of time to first but again dropped the toss, allowing Schoop to hustle home for a 2-1 lead.
..... - Newsday