Trevor Rogers’ afternoon in the Bronx may have been his last in an Orioles uniform, but the bigger story was the flood of offense Baltimore brought with him. The Orioles rolled past the Yankees 10-2 in the opener of Friday’s doubleheader at Yankee Stadium, riding a pair of Pete Alonso home runs and a big fourth inning to snap a nine-game losing streak in the Bronx.
Alonso did the heavy lifting early and late. He launched his 42nd homer in the second inning, a two-run blast off Brendan Beck, then came back in the seventh and crushed his 43rd, a 471-foot drive that tied Rafael Palmeiro for eighth on the Orioles’ single-season home run list. Alonso has now hit eight home runs in his last nine games, and 22 since the All-Star break.
“There’s been some great moments,” Alonso said before the game. “But that’s not the expectation. As a club, we failed to perform.”
He was also clear about how he views the Orioles’ season after they were eliminated from postseason play on Thursday.
“The standard for us is to not only make the postseason, but make a run and have a legitimate shot to hold up a trophy at the end the year,” he said.
Baltimore’s biggest burst came in the fourth, when it scored five times to blow the game open and move ahead 7-0. Christian Franklin picked up his first major league RBI with a bases-loaded single that scored Coby Mayo, and Dylan Beavers followed by hammering a grand slam for his eighth homer.
The Orioles kept piling on from there. Jeremiah Jackson added an inside-the-park home run in the sixth, his 10th of the season and Baltimore’s second inside-the-park shot in 10 days. Mayo had one on September 15 at Citi Field in the game Alonso hit his 300th.
Rogers worked four innings, allowed one run on five hits, struck out four and threw 55 pitches. New York’s lone damage against him came in the fourth, when Heliot Ramos tripled and Amed Rosario singled him home.
“The 30 th start was pretty big for me personally,” Rogers said. “Just being able to go out there for a couple of innings, four innings, and keep my team in it, and feeling good, just end out the year, it was special.”
Albert Suárez handled the middle of the game for Baltimore with four scoreless innings, allowing three hits and striking out five. Gunnar Henderson added an RBI single in the eighth to bring Franklin home and make it 10-1.
The Yankees, already locked into a wild-card series against Boston next week, finished with their second run against Baltimore’s staff but never threatened to make it interesting.
Alonso’s second-half surge has caught the attention of manager Craig Albernaz, who pointed to both the quality of the at-bats and the way the ball is coming off Alonso’s bat.
“It’s not only the at-bat quality, the pitches he’s getting,” Albernaz said. “He’s not missing them.
He squares them up pretty good. The boys are fired up for him.”
As for Rogers, the outing came with extra weight because of where his season could be headed next. He’ll be a free agent, and while he has said he’d like to stay, there has been no sign of movement toward a return.
“There’s some unknown in the future, and it’s an exciting time for me personally, but I owe this organization a lot,” he said. “They helped me get back to where I wanted to be.
“I’d love to be back here, but the business side of baseball, you never know.”
Rogers said he plans to test the market and see what happens.
“I earned the right to earn it to free agency,” he said. “I get to test the market and see what it says, that’s kind of he exciting thing about the whole ordeal.
I finally get a say about where I want to go. I’ve made it known about this place and how I feel about this place.
We’ll see how the business of baseball shakes out.”
Brandon Young, who is 9-5 with a 3.62 ERA, is set to start Game 2.
Orioles-Yankees Game 2 lineups:
Orioles: Dylan Beavers-DH, Pete Alonso-1B, Coby Mayo-3B, Jeremiah Jackson-2B, Leody Taveras-CF, Rece Hinds-RF, Christian Franklin-LF, Yohel Pozo-C, José Barrero-SS, Brandon Young-RHP.
Yankees: Ben Rice-DH, Cody Bellinger-LF, Heliot Ramos-RF, Luis Garcia Jr.-1B, Spencer Jones-CF, Jazz Chisholm Jr.-2B, Anthony Volpe-SS, Austin Wells-C, Ryan McMahon-3B, Ryan Yarbrough-LHP.
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