NEW YORK — The Baltimore Orioles clinched their second straight playoff berth, overcoming Aaron Judge‘s major-league-leading 56th home run to beat the New York Yankees 5-3 on Tuesday night.
The Orioles’ win combined with the Minnesota Twins‘ loss to the Miami Marlins nine minutes later assured Baltimore at least an American League wild card.
Anthony Santander hit his 44th home run, and Ramon Urias and Colton Cowser also went deep for Baltimore (87-80), which closed within five games of the AL East-leading Yankees (92-65) with five games left. The Orioles’ win clinched the season series and the tiebreaker against the Yankees, but Baltimore would have to finish 5-0 while New York goes 0-5 for the Orioles to finish atop the division.
New York, which clinched a playoff berth last week, would win the AL East with one more victory.
Baltimore had lost seven of its previous 10 games.
Santander homered in the sixth against Clarke Schmidt (5-5), a drive off the right-field foul pole. Eligible for free agency after the World Series, the switch-hitter has set career bests for homers and RBIs (100).
Urias boosted the lead to 4-1 with a home run against Tim Mayza starting the seventh.
Gleyber Torres‘ two-out RBI double and Juan Soto‘s run-scoring single against Yennier Cano in the bottom half cut the deficit to 4-3, but when Soto continued to second on Santander’s throw home from right, Torres got caught in a rundown between third base and home plate and was tagged out — preventing Judge from batting with two on.
Cowser homered off Ian Hamilton in the eighth.
Dean Kremer (8-10) allowed one run and three hits in five innings. Seranthony Dominguez, Baltimore’s seventh pitcher, got two outs for his 11th save in 13 chances.
Schmidt gave up thee runs and four hits in five-plus innings.
Heston Kjerstad‘s RBI grounder in the second and Ryan O’Hearn‘s run-scoring single in the fourth following Schmidt’s wild pitch built a 2-0 lead.
Judge homered in the bottom half, a high drive to left field.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
