BALTIMORE _ When the first batter he faced lined a ball right back at him, Sonny Gray did not flinch. Well, maybe he flinched a little, but he also caught the screamer hit by former Yankee Jace Peterson.
When Manny Machado hit a solo home run off him two batters later, Gray did not crumble. He went on to pitch six innings and allowed only that run as the Yankees beat the Orioles, 4-1, Friday night at Camden Yards.
Gray (4-4, 5.50 ERA), the enigmatic right-hander, has thrown two superb outings in his past three. He gave up one run in eight innings at Kansas City on May 20, giving the Yankees hope he had turned a corner.
But after the Angels strafed Gray for five runs in 3 2/3 innings May 26, questions continued to fester about whether Gray would live up to his past success or his stuff.
He did Friday. Pitching against the team with the fewest runs in the American League, Gray allowed four hits, hit a batter and struck out six. He threw 90 pitches, 55 for strikes.
Greg Bird drove in the go-ahead run in the fifth inning and Aaron Judge hit a majestic, crowd-pleasing solo home run to left in the seventh. Even the Orioles fans in the typically Yankee-fan heavy Camden Yards crowd got a thrill out of seeing Judge blast his 16th homer against lefthander Tanner Scott.
At that point, Judge was 32-for-82 (.390) with 13 homers and 29 RBIs in 24 games against the Orioles since the start of the 2017 season.
After Machado gave the Orioles a 1-0 lead with his 17th home run, Gleyber Torres tied the score with an RBI single off Andrew Cashner (2-7, 5.02) in the third.
The Yankees loaded the bases with no outs when Brett Gardner singled, but Cashner retired the next three batters to keep the score tied.
Bird untied it with a two-out triple to deep center in the fifth. Adam Jones got to the drive at the wall, but saw it glance off the bottom of his glove as the Yankees took a 2-1 lead. It was Bird's first career triple.
Austin Romine, catching Gray in place of Gary Sanchez, made it 3-1 with an opposite-field RBI double in the sixth before Judge made it 4-1 in the next inning.
Chad Green escaped a two-on, two-out situation in the seventh by striking out pinch hitter Pedro Alvarez.
Dellin Betances loaded the bases in the eighth with one out on two walks and a hit batter. Betances recovered to strike out Jonathan Schoop and get Chris Davis to fly out to center.
Aroldis Chapman struck out the side in a perfect ninth for his 13th save as the Yankees won the opener of this shortened three-game series. Thursday's game was rained out. Saturday's may be, too. But Friday's was Sonny.
