BALTIMORE _ After a marathon Sunday Night Baseball game against the Red Sox, the bleary-eyed Yankees arrived in their hotels here about 3 a.m. Monday.
"Obviously it's a very quick turnaround," Joe Girardi said a couple of hours before an afternoon game against the Orioles, "but we'll deal with it."
That they did.
Building on the momentum from taking three of four from Boston, the Yankees opened a critical series against the Orioles with a 7-4 come-from-behind victory in front of 37,622 at Camden Yards.
The Yankees (74-63), in getting a positive start to this nine-game, three-city trip, momentarily inched within three games of the AL East-leading Red Sox, who played at Toronto Monday night.
Rookie left-hander Jordan Montgomery put the Yankees in an early 3-0 hole, allowing a first-inning homer to Tim Beckham and a second inning two-run blast to Chris Davis.
But the offense, held without a hit the first three innings by Dylan Bundy, erupted in the middle innings, scoring three times in the fourth, twice in the fifth and twice more in the sixth.
Starlin Castro's two-run homer in the fifth snapped a 3-3 tie and put the Yankees ahead for good against an Orioles team that came in 70-67 and in the thick of the AL wild-card race having won 10 of their previous 13 games. Castro went 3 for 4 with three RBIs.
Didi Gregorius' two-run homer in the fourth cut the Yankees' deficit to 3-2. He became the first shortstop in franchise history to hit 20 homers in back-to-back seasons.
Aaron Judge went 1 for 1 with four walks, giving him 103 this season. Judge became the first rookie to walk that many times since Jim Gilliam (Brooklyn) in 1953.
Montgomery, on an innings limit in the range of 185, allowed three runs (two earned) and five hits over 42/3 innings, running his season total to 134 2/3.
Chad Green (3-0, 1.97 ERA) fanned four over 21/3 innings and David Robertson, after walking two to start the eighth, retired three straight, two on strikeouts. Dellin Betances allowed a two-out homer in the ninth to Welington Castillo that made it 7-4.
