The only champagne being sprayed on Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium came in the visiting clubhouse.
The home clubhouse was much quieter and dryer, with Gleyber Torres left trying to explain his baserunning blunder that killed a Yankees rally with Aaron Judge on deck.
A play in which the Yankees cut the deficit to one run in the seventh inning ended with Torres getting tagged in a rundown, wasting their first chance to clinch the American League East and falling to the Orioles 5-3.
“When it comes down to it, stuff like that can’t happen,” Judge said. “We can’t keep shooting ourselves in the foot with mistakes like that on the basepaths. But it happened and we got to move on and get ready for [Wednesday].”
The Yankees (92-65) will try to wrap up the division again on Wednesday and need just one win or one loss by the Orioles (87-70) over the final five games to do it.
While the Orioles clinched a playoff spot with the win, Tuesday’s loss stung for the Yankees after wasting a chance to just take care of business in the series opener.
Trailing 4-1 entering the bottom of the seventh, the Yankees looked like they were going to use some late magic to clinch the division in style. T
orres (3-for-4) ripped a ground-rule double to right field off Yennier Cano that cut the deficit to 4-2 and brought up Juan Soto with the crowd on its feet ready to explode.
Soto delivered an RBI single to right field and kept running to second base on the throw home that was late trying to nab Alex Verdugo for the run that made it 4-3.
Torres had initially taken a turn around third base but was nearly all the way back to the bag when he took off for home right as catcher Adley Rutschman threw to second trying to get Soto.
Soto slid in safely, but the Orioles got Torres into a rundown and eventually tagged him out to end the inning and rob Judge — who had hit his 56th home run earlier in the game — of a chance to tie it or take the lead.
“I just tried to protect Soto,” Torres said, thinking his teammate was in danger of making the third out and trying to stop the Orioles from having a play at second. “I was a little in between to go to home plate. I feel like I went a little bit late and after that, they made me out.
“I feel like I have to be a little more aggressive if I’m going to make that decision — go straight to steal that run.”
Manager Aaron Boone said Torres either needed to fake going home or commit to it sooner.
“Once Rutschman squares [to throw to second], are you going to sell out to go or are you going to bluff him to try to pull off?” Boone said. “He got caught in between.”
It marked the sixth time Torres has made an out at home plate this season, which is tied for most in the majors.
“You have the context on all the outs at home plate?” Boone said. “A handful of those are two outs, bang-bang plays on an aggressive send. So it’s important to have context with that. He does make some mistakes on the bases. He’s cleaned it up from last year and the year before where he was getting himself in trouble a lot.”
The Yankees had another prime chance for a rally with no outs in the fifth inning, trailing 2-1 with runners on first and second. But Alex Verdugo grounded into a double play, generating boos from the crowd of 41,419, before Torres flew out to the warning track.
The Orioles crushed a home run in three consecutive innings — one each off Clarke Schmidt (ending his night in the sixth), Tim Mayza and Ian Hamilton.
It was a reminder that although they have struggled lately, the Orioles have had the Yankees’ number (clinching the season series on Tuesday, in case a tiebreaker comes into play) and could see them again in the postseason.
“I think it’s going to be back and forth the rest of this series,” Judge said. “I was even talking with Rutschman at home that, ‘We’ll probably be seeing you later down the road.’ Looking forward to it.”
