BALTIMORE _ Aaron Boone laid out the Yankees' mindset going into Monday's doubleheader against the cellar-dwelling Orioles. "Get it done," the manager said.
Not in Game 1, as the Yankees absorbed an ugly 5-4 loss at Camden Yards. But they rebounded with a 10-2 victory in Game 2, getting six scoreless innings from Luis Cessa and two-run homers from Brett Gardner and Austin Romine. Gardner had four hits and took away a home run with a leaping catch in center field.
"They're all a grind," Boone said between games, disagreeing with the premise that a loss to the Orioles is worse than one against anyone else. "Every win is a good one and feels good, and the losses sting. It's get on to the next one."
In the next one, the Yankees bolted to a 3-0 lead (as they did in Game 1).
Gardner singled in the first against right-hander Yefry Ramirez, went to second on Aaron Judge's long flyout to right and scored on a Didi Gregorius double. Gardner's two-run homer in the fourth, his seventh, made it 3-0 and the still-hot Giancarlo Stanton, who hit his 22nd homer in Game 1, doubled in the fifth inning and came in on Greg Bird's single to center for a 4-0 lead. Romine's two-run shot in the eighth, after a Clint Frazier double, made it 6-0.
Cessa, brought up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to make Monday's start, was terrific. Aided by three double plays, the 26-year-old right-hander, who likely will be headed back to Scranton, allowed three hits. He walked three and struck out four.
CC Sabathia did not have as much fortune in holding his 3-0 lead in the first game.
First baseman Neil Walker's inability to come up with a potential double-play grounder in the sixth inning swung the game. It extended an inning in which Danny Valencia hit a three-run homer off Sabathia that turned the Yankees' 4-2 lead into a 5-4 deficit.
"That's part of the game," Sabathia said of the scorched grounder by Jonathan Schoop that Walker couldn't handle. "That ball was hit hard. It's just part of it."
After scoring three runs in the first three innings of the opener, the Yankees (58-30) scored one the rest of the way.
The Yankees nearly came back in the ninth against lefty closer Zach Britton, a possible trade target of more than a few teams, including them.
Miguel Andujar, pinch hitting for Walker, led off with a single, went to second on a wild pitch and advanced to third on Brandon Drury's groundout to second. Kyle Higashioka, who doubled earlier, struck out. Brett Gardner, who drove in the winning run with a 10th-inning single Sunday in Toronto, batted for Tyler Wade and grounded to first, earning Britton his second save.
Sabathia (6-4, 3.34), unhappy much of the afternoon with umpire John Tumpane's strike zone, cruised through the first three innings and held a 3-0 lead going into the fourth, a 31-pitch inning.
Manny Machado doubled with one out and Mark Trumbo launched a cutter to left field for his 12th homer, making it 3-2.
The Yankees tacked on a run in the sixth. Stanton led off with a single and went to second on Frazier's groundout to third. Walker, in a 4-for-45 slide, slashed an 0-and-2 pitch to left for a single that brought in Stanton for a 4-2 lead.
Trumbo walked leading off the sixth, and Schoop hit a sharp grounder to first that looked as if it might result in a double play. Walker kicked it, however, and somehow it was scored a double. Valencia snapped an 0-for-25 skid by blasting a slider to center for his ninth homer.
"I think it was just a pitch that he knew was coming," said Sabathia, who allowed five runs and seven hits in five-plus innings and hasn't beaten the Orioles since June 5, 2016. "I probably should have gone a different way right there, especially after he swung at the first one (a slider) and I tried to do it again. That was a mistake on my part."
