BALTIMORE — It has seemed, pretty much all of the time, as if Buck Showalter’s Orioles won a yearlong sabbatical from reality, and they had invited us to bear witness to their little adventure.
And for eight innings last night, you had every reason to think the Orioles’ magic had traveled smoothly into this American League Division Series, ready to neutralize the mighty Yankees at Camden Yards.
Then came Russell Martin. He’s from Canada, but here in Game 1, you could call him Russell From Reality.
Suddenly, reality bit baseball’s biggest surprise.
Martin started the ninth inning by blasting a homer to left field off Orioles All-Star closer Jim Johnson, and the Yankees proceeded to roll, 7-2, to take a 1-0 lead in this best-of-five series. In pulling off the victory, the Yankees honored an ace-like performance from CC Sabathia and assured themselves of no worse than a tie when they return to Yankee Stadium on Wednesday for Game 3.
“You either want to be in those situations, or you don’t want to be in them,” Martin said. “I love being in those situations.”
You’ve figured that out by now if you’ve paid attention to the Yankees. Martin finished with underwhelming overall offensive numbers, even after coming on strong in the second half. Yet he delivered strong defense — he did last night, too, falling on his face as he threw out Lew Ford in the fifth, with Mark Teixeira making a great scoop — and man, did he contribute some big hits.
He hit the Yankees’ only two regular-season walk-off homers: on June 10 in the ninth against the Mets and on Sept. 21 in the 10th against Oakland. Throw in this postseason blast, and he has three of the Yankees’ four game-winning homers in the ninth inning or later; Nick Swisher hit a two-run shot in the 10th on April 11 here in Baltimore.
“He was huge in the month of September for us,” manager Joe Girardi said of Martin. “Huge hit tonight. He’s got a lot of power. He packs a lot of power. And he’s capable of doing it.”
The Yankees, a team that usually doesn’t take enough risks on the bases to have that component be a factor, ran themselves out of two early rallies. Ichiro Suzuki followed an RBI double in the first inning — driving home Derek Jeter, to give the Yankees the instant lead — by getting thrown out on an attempted steal of third. And in the fourth, when Teixeira drilled a shot off the right-field wall to bring home Alex Rodriguez with the tying run, the Yankees’ recovering first baseman unwisely went for a double and failed to succeed.
The Orioles put together a two-run rally in the third, pulling ahead on three singles in four at-bats by Chris Davis, Ford and Nate McLouth; Robert Andino mixed in a sacrifice bunt. Davis began this season as a once-heralded prospect on the downswing; Ford started 2012 with the Long Island Ducks, of all clubs; and McLouth kicked off the year in a Pirates uniform. Oh, and Ford’s base hit came on a broken bat. Of course.
Baltimore first baseman Mark Reynolds, not known for his glove, made two outstanding stops at first base. And he was upstaged by his teammate behind the plate, Matt Wieters, who pulled off the play of the game in the seventh when, off an Ichiro grounder to second, he fielded Andino’s short-hop and reached to tag a sliding Martin, keeping the game tied.
It turned out none of that mattered, because the Yankees hitter who has continually defied his team’s narrative — these guys can’t deliver in the big spot — came through in the big spot and added another highlight to his free-agent resume this winter.
The Orioles’ magic surely won’t disappear just because of one bad night, and if you think back, you might recall the Yankees won their playoff openers in 2002, 2005, 2006 and last year, only to go down in the first round.
But Martin’s homer pushed these pesky rivals closer to the edge of the cliff, a huge development in a short series. A gigantic hit by a guy who loves to be in there when it matters the most.