BALTIMORE — After waiting almost two months to get Aaron Judge back in their lineup, the Yankees had to sit around for another two hours and 32 minutes Friday night as storms delayed the start of his first game back.
At long last, Judge returned to action, only for the night to end in disappointment.
Anthony Santander crushed a walk-off home run against Tommy Kahnle in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the first-place Orioles to a 1-0 win over the last-place Yankees, capping off a tense, well-pitched AL East battle at Camden Yards.
On a night when Judge went 0-for-1 with three walks, the rest of the Yankees’ offense remained quiet, with just four hits to waste a terrific outing by Gerrit Cole.
The Yankees (54-49) were stymied by Orioles rookie right-hander Grayson Rodriguez and four relievers, but they got yet another sterling performance from Cole.
The ace turned in his latest gem by throwing seven shutout innings on 110 pitches, allowing three hits and no walks while striking out five.
Rodriguez came into the season as one of the top prospects in baseball, but entered Friday with a 6.91 ERA for the Orioles (63-40).
Against the Yankees, he turned in 6 ¹/₃ shutout innings of three-hit ball.
The rookie and the Orioles’ bullpen were backed up by some splendid defense, which robbed the Yankees of multiple hits.
That included a pair of gems in the top of the eighth, when Santander laid out in right field to rob Anthony Volpe of an extra-base hit, before second baseman Adam Frazier ended the inning with a diving stop on a ground ball from Anthony Rizzo that likely would have driven in a run had it gotten through.
From the second Judge stepped out of the dugout for pregame stretching, he was showered with cheers from the crowd, which included a large contingent of Yankees fans.
When he walked to the plate for his first at-bat, the ovation got even louder, with the swaths of Yankees fans rising to their feet to greet the captain — along with a smattering of boos from the home crowd.
Judge wasted no time in letting it rip at the plate.
He swung at the first pitch he saw from Rodriguez and lined it 104.4 mph off the bat to right field, but the ball hung up just long enough to become an out.
Rodriguez went on to retire the first 10 batters he faced before Judge worked a full count and drew a walk with one out in the fourth inning.
Rizzo followed with a single for the Yankees’ first hit of the night, but the threat was quickly extinguished when Giancarlo Stanton grounded into a double play.
If nothing else, the Yankees drove up Rodriguez’s pitch count in a scoreless sixth inning.
Judge drew his second walk of the night on another full count before Rizzo battled for an 11-pitch at-bat that ended in a groundout.
But by the end of the frame, they had forced Rodriguez to throw 29 pitches, extending his count to 88.
The Yankees had another prime chance to take the lead in the top of the seventh.
DJ LeMahieu’s one-out single knocked Rodriguez out of the game before Billy McKinney drew a walk against reliever Shintaro Fujinami. But then Harrison Bader grounded into an inning-ending double play.
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