Orioles vs. Yankees intensity is just a glimpse of what awaits this season | ANALYSIS

NEW YORK — During the final half of the Orioles’ game against the Yankees on Tuesday night, more attention was paid to whether a pitch was too up and in than the actual score.

The players will say it was just another June ballgame, but it didn’t look or feel that way.

Batters were plunked. Others were brushed back. Curse words were screamed from dugouts. And frustrations were expressed postgame.

Welcome to the Orioles-Yankees rivalry circa 2024.

“Oh, definitely pissed,” New York slugger Aaron Judge told reporters after the Yankees’ 4-2 win. “There was a couple balls up and in. That’s part of it. They like to throw in.”

The American League East remains MLB’s best division, but it’s already a two-team race. Judge, Juan Soto and the Yankees are currently leading near the halfway point, while Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman and the Orioles are 2 1/2 games behind. Meanwhile, the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays are all laps behind, hoping to battle for a wild-card berth and far away from division title talk.

“Yeah, it’s Yankee Stadium,” Orioles left fielder Austin Hays said when asked about the intensity of Tuesday’s game with a sold-out crowd of 47,429 in attendance. “It seems like it’s always a sellout every time we’re here. The stadium fills up throughout the game, and the more pitches are thrown, the louder it gets. It was Yankee Stadium, just like it always is, tonight.”

This past weekend’s series in Baltimore against the Philadelphia Phillies was the first highly anticipated set of the season, a packed Camden Yards creating a playoff-like atmosphere for all three games. That series and this one against the Yankees — a pivotal one given these teams will only face off in two more sets this season — aren’t outliers. As the Orioles have the national spotlight on them and chase their second consecutive 100-win season, there will be plenty more tense games like Tuesday’s.

After this week’s series against the Yankees, Baltimore will play at least six more energized sets this season. Later this month, the Orioles will welcome the Texas Rangers to Camden Yards in a rematch of last season’s AL Division Series. The final two games will be on national television: June 29 on Fox, and June 30 on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball.” Tuesday’s game was aired on TBS, and the Orioles have at least nine more national TV games through the regular season.

Three weeks later, the Orioles head to Arlington, Texas, to play at Globe Life Field for the first time since their 2023 season ended there in crushing fashion. Right before the All-Star break, the Yankees are back in Baltimore with two spotlight games, one on FS1 and the other streamed on Roku.

In August, the Orioles will head to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers, one of the National League’s best teams and the front-runner to win the World Series, according to FanGraphs’ odds. Corbin Burnes versus Shohei Ohtani? Henderson versus Tyler Glasnow? Yeah, that will also feel like a potential World Series preview the same way the Orioles-Phillies series did.

In September, the Orioles play at Fenway Park against a Red Sox team that appears likely to be in the wild-card hunt while Baltimore could be approaching playoff-berth clinching territory. Two weeks later, the final week of the regular season, could feature the biggest series of them all — a three-game set at Yankee Stadium in which the clubs could be duking it out for the division crown.

“They’re the Yankees. We know that they’re a good team,” said Hays, who compared this week’s series with the Orioles’ season-altering one last July in St. Petersburg, Florida, against the Rays. “They’re always at the top of the division. We always play really tough series.”

The angst was bubbling underneath the surface the moment Soto strangely ran into third baseman Jordan Westburg, one of the Orioles’ best players, while he was fielding a ground ball. Soto was called out for interference, and while it appeared he tried to evade Westburg, the unusual play still raised some eyebrows. Westburg exited the game with a bruised left hip.

“I didn’t really understand it,” Henderson said. “He was having to come make the play in. But just kind of a freak thing.”

Jordan Westburg exited Baltimore’s game vs. the Yankees tonight with left hip discomfort, the Orioles said.

Westburg appeared to injure his hip on this play in the first inning when Juan Soto committed an interference on the basepaths. pic.twitter.com/SiaEEhohEJ

— Jacob Calvin Meyer (@jcalvinmeyer) June 18, 2024

“That’s a strange play,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “You don’t see that a ton. A routine ground ball, just ran into him on it. I don’t know.”

Orioles starter Albert Suárez then hit Judge in the hand, and reliever Keegan Akin later plunked Gleyber Torres in the same spot. The fans in the Bronx didn’t approve. Neither did several team members in New York’s dugout, who could be seen on TV broadcasts shouting expletives.

“It’s a little frustrating and a little uncomfortable when you see it twice,” Soto told reporters after the game. “I hope it don’t happen again.”

“We don’t take what happened lightly,” Yankees cleanup hitter Alex Verdugo said. “These are our guys and, obviously, captains. It’s a big one for us. None of us are too pleased about it, but at the same time, I don’t believe it was intentional. A couple pitches got away from their guys. It was just one of those things. If you can’t [pitch] in, don’t go in that day.”

Nestor went up and in on Gunnar Henderson pic.twitter.com/SIWP35Izec

— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) June 19, 2024

Suárez said he enjoyed the intense environment — his first start at Yankee Stadium. Henderson, 22, said the energy is palpable in the stadium but that it still, to him, felt like a normal June game.

On the line Wednesday and Thursday will be another one of the Orioles’ impressive streaks. They’ve won or split 21 consecutive divisional series, tied for the longest streak in MLB history since divisions were introduced in 1969. The last time Baltimore (47-25) lost an AL East series was against the — yep, you guessed it — Yankees in early April 2023. In that time, the Orioles have gone 47-23 against division foes.

While it might feel like the Orioles’ season lives and dies with each pitch, each controversy, each game this week in New York, that’s simply not how baseball works. These games against the Yankees do mean more given the stakes of the AL East crown, but they are still only three out of 162.

“There’s a lot of baseball games left to play,” Hays said. “They were the better team [Tuesday]. We’ve just got to come back and play better.”