MLB

Gritty Orioles specialize in serial drama

BALTIMORE — You remember that first moment when Butch and Sundance, tired of getting chased all over Wyoming, weary of being hunted down like bucks and bears, finally rolled their eyes as they peered at the posse pursuing them, finally muttering: “Who are those guys?”

You remember that Lord Baltimore was one of the crew, right?

The Yankees won’t say it, not yet, not while the race is on, not while the chase is on. Not even now, after a 3-2 loss in Game 2, another night when it seemed they left half the ballpark on base, another one-run win for the Orioles, another moment when the O’s had every opportunity to prove they weren’t equal to the stage, or to the moment, and went the other way instead.

“You like the mathematics of it,” Buck Showalter said.

No, the Yankees won’t say it. But you know they have to be thinking it as they boarded their train north early this morning, as they prepare for Game 3 back at Yankee Stadium tomorrow, as they ponder what to make of the Orioles, now 10-10 in 20 games so far this year. For two months, as they’ve seen a lineup of no-names hunt them down, watched the likes of Nate McLouth and Chris Davis and Wei-Yin Chen keep pushing, keep prodding, keep taking shots to the chin and the jaw and the stomach, and ask for more.

Have to be thinking: “Who are those guys?”

“We get to go home, and we’ve played very well at home,” Joe Girardi said. “And we’re going to have to do that if we’re going to move on. It seems like Baltimore and us have kind of went back and forth all year, and that’s what we did here.”

Girardi is a numerologist of some renown, of course, so you know he isn’t nearly as convinced as those words make it seem. For the Yankees already have played three three-game series at Yankee Stadium against the Orioles, as they will across the next three nights:

April 30-May 2: Orioles 2 games, Yankees 1.

July 30-Aug. 1: Orioles 2 games, Yankees 1.

Aug. 31- Sept. 2: Orioles 2 games, Yankees 1.

“We feel comfortable playing in New York,” said Davis, whose two-run single off hard-luck loser Andy Pettitte turned the game around last night, one of the battery of no-names that litter the Orioles’ lineup. “Obviously it’s going to be a little different atmosphere with playoff baseball. As long as we continue to do what we’ve done all year and really just focus on our goals and expectations, I think we’ll be all right.”

Everyone keeps waiting for the trap door to get them. They never did pass the Yankees in September, after all. They did have to survive that one-and-done gauntlet in Texas five days ago. And in Game 1, after putting up a game fight for eight innings, the Yankees torched the O’s closer, Jim Johnson, for five runs.

It felt like the Yankees had finally made Bolivia, safe from Lord Baltimore’s sights.

Only here came Johnson again last night, that heavy sinking fastball of his still in his glove. A night before, Showalter had barely shrugged when dismissing Johnson’s blowup as an aberration, and when asked if he might have second thoughts about bringing him in again, despite his 51-saves-in-54-tries record this year, Buck almost scoffed.

“No,” he’d said. “No, that’s the easiest question I’ll get tonight.”

So here he was again, facing the top of the Yankees lineup, and on one pitch that bowling-ball sinker induced Derek Jeter to ground to short and on four pitches he coaxed Ichiro Suzuki to do the same, to second. And then, 3-and-2 to Alex Rodriguez, 48,187 towel-waving, Yankees-hating partisans on their feet and screaming for the clouds, he blew one right under A-Rod’s bat. Orioles 3, Yankees 2. One game apiece in the series, 10-10 on the year, a best-of-three at Yankee Stadium where they’re already six-for-nine.

Who are those guys?

“I believe in our guys,” Girardi said, and that’s good to hear, because the other guys? They may not have the same amount of talent. They have nowhere near the amount of playoff experience. But they believe. That may not be enough in the end.

But then again … it might. It just might.