New York Yankees ‘Punched in the Face,’ Fall Out of First Place With Series Loss to Baltimore Orioles

The New York Yankees have had better weeks.

The Yankees were cruising at 19-10 on Monday, sitting pretty in first place in the American League East. After a four-game series with the Baltimore Orioles, they’re now 20-13 — second place in the division and looking up at the Orioles in the standings.

The Yankees traveled to Baltimore for an important early-season series, and scored just six runs across the four games. After getting shut out in the series opener, the Yankees mustered just two runs in each of the next three games.

Following the series finale, a dominant 7-2 win by Baltimore, Yankees All-Star second baseman Gleyber Torres didn’t mince words.

“We got punched in the face,” Torres told reporters. “We got three more (series against them) so we have to figure out a way to beat them.”

The Orioles made a surprise leap to the top of the American League in 2023, winning the division and securing the AL’s No. 1 seed. Despite their disappointing postseason results, they were again considered a favorite to compete in a talented AL East this season — and this week, they proved just that.

Baltimore’s starting pitchers had a 1.93 ERA across the four games, while their bullpen had an ERA of just 0.71. They shut down a high-powered Yankees offense, especially superstar outfielder Aaron Judge, who went just 1-for-13 in the series with zero extra-base hits.

Judge’s rough series continues an overall ugly start to the season for the 2022 AL MVP. Judge is slashing just .197/.331/.393 in 33 games, with six home runs and 40 strikeouts.

“Just grinding right now to get there, and he will,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said about Judge. “He’ll get it going, and look out when he does.”

While Judge played a new position for the first time in his career this series, Boone was asked if another change could be coming. A reporter asked Boone if leaving Judge in the No. 3 hole in the lineup was the best course of action for right now.

“Yeah, yeah,” Boone said. “We’ll see.”

Judge didn’t seem too worried about his slow start to the season following Thursday’s game.

“It’s baseball,” Judge said. “I’ve had stretches like these. Plenty in the major leagues, plenty throughout my life. It’s part of it. I can’t sit here and dwell on it. It’s May. It’s a new month. Time to get going.”

The Yankees’ series loss to Baltimore didn’t only drop them to second place in the standings, but also dropped them to 6-7 against AL East opponents this season. While the Yankees are still in great shape as the month of May gets going, they know they’ll have to take care of business in the division if they want to not only make the playoffs, but make a potentially deep run.

The Yankees don’t play the Orioles again until June 18-20 at Yankee Stadium.