MLB

SWISHER SPARKS OFFENSE IN NICK OF TIME

BALTIMORE — Nick Swisher can do more than blister the paint on the clubhouse wall with loud music, break teammates’ chops and look like John Belushi in pinstripes.

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In his first start of the young season, the switch-hitting Swisher helped A.J. Burnett carry the Yankees to a much-needed, 11-2, victory over the Orioles yesterday in front of 28,534 at Camden Yards.

With right fielder Xavier Nady shifted to designated hitter and cleanup hitter Hideki Matsui put on the bench, Swisher started in right and went 3-for-5 with a home run and a career-high five RBIs.

“It’s nice to get the win, especially after the first couple of games,” said Swisher, who isn’t a regular player for the first time in his career. “Wherever I am told to go I will do my best. Today the sun shined on me. Skip (Joe Girardi) told me to have faith and it will work out. I trust the man.”

Because Burnett followed awful outings by CC Sabathia and Chien-Ming Wang and the Yankees were 0-2, there was pressure on the right-hander, who signed an $82.5 million contract in the offseason, to deliver the Yankees’ initial win of the season.

He obliged by allowing two runs and seven hits in 5 1/3 innings. Phil Coke, Jose Veras, Brian Bruney and Mariano Rivera hurled 3 2/3 innings of perfect relief, getting six of the 11 outs via strikeout.

Mark Teixeira (2-for-5) slugged his first Yankees homer leading off the fourth.

“It felt good, I hit it well,” Teixeira said of the blast to center. “I might have gotten a little pull happy. After the first at-bat I figured staying up the middle was important.”

Swisher lofted a two-run homer three batters after Teixeira’s homer off loser Alfredo Simon. Robinson Cano went 3-for-4 and hit a two-run homer in the seventh. Swisher added a two-run double in the ninth.

Swisher played a role when the Yankees broke the game open in the sixth with four runs (two earned) for a 7-2 lead. Swisher delivered an RBI single and hustled home from second on a throwing error by pitcher Brian Bass.

The Yankees, after extending their slump for the young season with runners in scoring position to 3-for-21 by going hitless in two third-inning at-bats, used the home run to score three in the fifth and erase a 1-0 deficit.

Teixeira, who was 1-for-10 as a Yankee after flying to center in the first, sent a first-pitch fastball over the center-field fence to start the fifth inning. Cano drew a one-out walk (his third in as many games) and scored on Swisher’s homer, which barely made it into the right-center field seats, just out of Nick Markakis’ reach.

The Orioles copped a 1-0 lead in the third, but it could have been worse for Burnett, who fanned Aubrey Huff on a 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded to end the frame.

“That was huge to get out of that jam,” said Burnett, who went with a 84-mph curveball to strand three.

Girardi acknowledged that even if the Orioles had swept the Yankees and sent them to Kansas City winless, a season with so much promise wouldn’t have been finished after three games. Still . . .

“Two games don’t make a season or a start but you don’t want to go 0-3,” Girardi said.

Thanks to Girardi’s decision to use Swisher, the switch-hitter’s big day and Burnett getting out of a game-turning jam, the Yankees didn’t have to answer questions about being 0-3 — which would have had a lot of people reaching for the panic button.

george.king@nypost.com

Yankees 11 Orioles 2