Yankees’ defensive blunders give Orioles walk-off win in Sunday afternoon debacle in Baltimore

The Yankees fought back to take a late lead, but their defense let them down in the ninth inning as the Baltimore Orioles picked up a dramatic 6-5 win on Sunday afternoon.

Here are the key takeaways…

-A pair of huge defensive blunders cost the Yankees the ballgame in the ninth inning. With a 5-3 lead and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, the Orioles had the bases loaded against Clay Holmes. A routine grounder to shortstop should have been all the Yankees needed to end the game, but Anthony Volpe let the ball play him, and his error kept the game alive.

Clinging now to a 5-4 lead, Holmes allowed a flyball off the bat of Cedric Mullins, which again should have been a routine play to end the game, but Alex Verdugo completely misjudged the ball, first coming in before retreating backwards. The ball landed over his head, giving the Orioles a remarkable 6-5 win.

-Perhaps what hurts the most about Sunday’s ninth-inning debacle is that it erased an incredible moment from rookie Ben Rice. With the Yankees down a run in the ninth inning and Craig Kimbrel on the mound, Trent Grisham walked to reach base for the fourth time (more on that in a moment), and another Kimbrel walk to Oswaldo Cabrera set the stage for Rice, and the young first baseman delivered in a huge way., pummeling a three-run homer to right to give the Yankees a two-run lead.

Rice now has six home runs in his brief major league stint, and he’s made a case for the Yankees to keep starting him at first base for the rest of the season.

-Grisham has drawn the ire of Yankees fans this season, coming into the game with a .173 average, but the lefty outfield had a productive day at the plate on Sunday. Grisham drove in the Yankees’ first run of the day with a two-out single off of Dean Kremer in the second inning, capitalizing on a two-out double by Volpe.

Then, with the Yankees down a run in the fifth, Grisham launched a no-doubter solo shot to right to tie the game at 2-2.

Grisham singled later on, giving him his first three-hit game in a Yankee uniform, he reached base four times.

–Carlos Rodon is usually pretty reliant on his slider, coming into play on Sunday having thrown that breaking ball 25.7 percent of the time. But facing an aggressive O’s lineup, Rodon was even more slider-heavy than normal, throwing 22 sliders in first 45 pitches and finishing his afternoon with 40 sliders in 98 total pitches (41 percent).

At times, the slider was a weapon, as he generated seven swings and misses on the slide ball while striking out seven batters on the afternoon. But it also hurt him at times, like in the third inning when Gunnar Henderson stayed back on a hanging slider and launched his 28^th home run of the season, perhaps some practice for Monday’s Home Run Derby in Arlington, Texas.

Rodon ended up going just 4.0 innings, allowing two earned runs on four hits with seven punchouts and three walks.

-Protection behind Aaron Judge continues to be an issue for the Yankees. Judge reached base three times on Sunday with a pair of walks and a hit-by-pitch, and in each of those instances Verdugo followed by making the final out of the inning.

Who was the game MVP?

If you ask Baltimore fans, it was the Yankees ninth-inning defense.

Highlights

What’s next?

The Yankees head into the All-Star break with a record of 58-40, second in the AL East.

They’ll start the second half of their season on Friday in the Bronx when they host the Tampa Bay Rays for four games, starting on Friday at 7:05 p.m.