NEW YORK _ A few weeks ago, it appeared that right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez had made his last start in an Orioles uniform when he was sent to the bullpen, but in Sunday's 6-4 series finale win at Yankee Stadium, he provided the kind of start this floundering team desperately needed.
Jimenez's outing was a strange one, because he dominated Yankees hitters by holding them to one run on four base runners while striking out 10 batters. But his outing was limited to five innings because of a deep pitch count that put him at 100 pitches after his final batter.
Orioles manager Buck Showalter has drawn criticism this season for sticking with Jimenez too long in some games, and he wasted no time turning to his bullpen Sunday.
For Jimenez, whose four years in an Orioles uniform have been a roller coaster, battling inconsistencies, flaw in his mechanics and several times moving in and out of the starting rotation.
But on Sunday, he carried exemplary stuff, particularly with his splitter, getting four of his 10 strikeouts _ all of them swinging _ on the pitch against a Yankees lineup that refused to expand the zone in any of their previous three games this series, all New York wins.
While pitching effectively down in the zone with the splitter, he worked the Yankees high in the zone with his four-seam fastball, also recording four strikeouts on that pitch.
The final six outs recorded by Jimenez were by strikeout.
The only run Jimenez allowed against the Yankees was a homer to Didi Gregorius in the second inning.
The reason he struggled to go deeper: He threw just five of 19 first-pitch strikes.
As has been the case all year long in the Bronx, preserving a six-run lead Sunday wasn't easy, as the Orioles had to used four relievers, including needing a four-out save by closer Zach Britton, to seal the win.
Mychal Givens allowed a two-run double with two outs in the sixth, and Brad Brach found trouble in the eighth when Aaron Judge hit a leadoff double, and Tim Beckham's throwing error put runners at the corners with one out.
A sacrifice fly by Starlin Castro scored Judge, but Brach walked Matt Holliday, and Showalter turned the game to Britton with two on and two outs in the eighth.
Britton's last blown save came in a four-out opportunity on Tuesday in Toronto, where Britton escaped the eighth easily but allowed two in the ninth in a Blue Jays walk-off win.
Showalter let Britton face the potential winning run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. With the Orioles' clinging to a 6-4 lead, Jacoby Ellsbury hit a one-out double down the line, and after he moved to third on a groundout Brett Gardner to first, he walked Judge intentionally to face Gary Sanchez.
Britton overmatched Sanchez, striking him out on five pitches, getting him to swing through three low sinkers to end the game.
Beckham provided the biggest hit of the series for the Orioles, hitting a three-run homer off Yankees starter Sonny Gray in the fourth inning that gave the Orioles a 5-1 lead.
Beckham, who hit .394 with 50 hits in August in his first month with the Orioles, entered Sunday batting just .164 with 19 K's in 15 September games.
But a matchup with Gray, who Beckham was 5-for-10 against entering the day, helped him break out.
In his third at bat of the game, Beckham turned on a 2-1 hanging slider from Gray, sending it over the left-center-field fence for his 22nd homer of the season and his 10th in 45 games with the Orioles.
Rookie Austin Hays' RBI single in the second gave the Orioles a 1-0 lead, and Trey Mancini's third-inning run-scoring double broke a 1-all tie. After Beckham's homer, the Orioles extended their lead in the fifth on Seth Smith's RBI groundout.
