BALTIMORE — Come on, now.
You really thought the Orioles were going to crawl into a hole and give up, after losing the American League Division Series opener in dramatic fashion?
You figured the Yankees, armed with a far more experienced and expensive roster, would just stroll into the AL Championship Series, as if it were a VIP club?
Did you not watch the regular season?
No, this one’s headed back to The Bronx tied at a game apiece, after the Yankees overcame their defensive sloppiness, but couldn’t solve Baltimore’s Wei-Yin Chen or his relief help. Therefore, they lost, 3-2, in ALDS Game 2 at Camden Yards, despite the best efforts of their Jedi Master, Andy Pettitte.
This one evoked countless memories of what we have been watching for the last month and change: A Yankees team unable to push ahead. An Orioles team unwilling to look in the mirror, realize, “Good Lord, we’re grossly overachieving!” and call it a year.
“This is a [Yankees] team that has been in the postseason a million times and we haven’t, so that happens,” Orioles center fielder Adam Jones said. “[Sunday] happened. Tonight’s a new night, and we played 27 outs. We battled our tails off.”
Said O’s manager Buck Showalter: “I think our guys are very realistic and … they understand the tough task ahead of them, regardless of what’s happened in the past. I think all of that gets thrown out the window when you get to this situation.
“So I’m just real proud that the guys continue to compete and do it with a lot of let-it-fly mentality. There’s no back-off in them at all.”
The Orioles were of course never supposed to make it this far, and one can easily forget now that, at the All-Star break, they stood at a modest 45-40, an excellent candidate to follow the Mets, Pirates and Indians into a second-half sinkhole.
Instead, while their fellow chronic losers turned to jelly, Showalter’s group went 48-29 in the second half, erasing a 10-game deficit to the Yankees in early September to force their older rivals into a month-long sprint. The Yankees ultimately prevailed by two games, avoiding the dreaded wild-card contest (in which the Orioles eliminated the defending AL champion Rangers), but both clubs showed much character in the process.
Thus we can’t be surprised the two teams are tied once more. Chen, the 27-year-old rookie from Taiwan, showed why he became the Orioles’ best starting pitcher, by far, in this magical campaign. He flirted with the Yankees’ fearsome lineup for his 6 1/3 innings, bending without breaking as he mixed in some curveballs, and the eight hits he allowed numbered six singles and two doubles. He limited the Yankees to two hits in seven at-bats with runners in scoring position, one of them (Curtis Granderson’s fourth-inning single) not even scoring a run.
When he departed in the seventh, with one out and tying run Ichiro Suzuki on first base, the crowd gave him a huge standing ovation, then screamed with joy as Darren O’Day (who was briefly a Met in 2009) struck out Alex Rodriguez for the second time in two nights. Lefty Brian Matusz immediately relieved O’Day, intentionally walked Robinson Cano and retired Nick Swisher on an inning-ending flyout to left field.
Matusz threw a scoreless eighth, and All-Star closer Jim Johnson redeemed his Game 1 loss by locking down his first career postseason save, striking out A-Rod for the final out.
In a joyous Orioles clubhouse, the team’s 83-year-old managing partner, Peter Angelos, made an extremely rare appearance, congratulating players and even sharing a few memories with some of the guys who have been around longer. For a franchise that endured 14 straight losing seasons from 1998 to last year, this was a huge night.
And we certainly can’t rule out more of them. Remember, the three remaining games are at Yankee Stadium, where the Orioles went 6-3 this season.
“As long as we can continue to do what we’ve done all year and really just focus on our goals and our expectations, I think we’ll be all right,” O’s right fielder Chris Davis said.
Back to New York we go, tied for the 11th time in 35 days. It’s a rivalry reborn, and it’s nowhere close to dead yet.