Baltimore Orioles end it in a “New York Minute”

We all know the song…”in a New York Minute, everything can change.” If you look at the rise of the Baltimore Orioles the past two years under Buck Showalter (who’s actually been in place since the end of 2010), it’s felt like a similarly short period of time. The same coul be said for the first team that Showalter managed, the New York Yankees. Ironically it was the Orioles, under Showalter, who sealed New York’s fate yesterday afternoon – sealing the fate of perhaps this generation of New York baseball.

Bud Norris gave the Orioles a solid six innings yesterday, as he battled a few of his own demons early on. Norris’ line: 6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 9 K. You can see the type of control that Norris had yesterday with those nine strikeouts – along with a J.D. Drew homer in the second inning with NY already leading by one. The same could be said for Chase Headley‘s third inning bomb, and suddenly it looked like perhps the bombers still had some life in them for 2014. But looks can be deceiving.

NY took the aforementioned 3-0 lead to the fourth, which is where the Baltimore Orioles ended the competitive part of the game – as well as the season for their division rivals. Ryan Flaherty‘s two-RBI double with the bases loaded cut the lead to 3-2, and perhaps put NY on notice that their days as the bullies of the east were in fact numbered. Nick Markakis added a two-RBI single to give the O’s the lead, and David Lough‘s RBI-triple would put the Orioles up by two.

Lough would later score on Adam Jones‘ infield RBI-single, brining the O’s out of the inning with a 6-3 lead. Lough would add a sac fly-RBI in the eighth, and Adam Jones and Nelson Cruz would add RBI-singles. New York would attempt to make a comeback in the last of the eighth on Mark Texeira’s two-run homer, however that’s all they could muster.

Courtesy of Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

Again, the loss ended New York’s post season hopes, rendering the rest of their season as meaningless. And in that New York Minute, perhaps this era of NYY baseball was finally put to sleep by the Orioles. With Derek Jeter retiring, the links to the glory seasons for that franchise will soon be gone. And perhaps it’s fitting that it was the Orioles, the team that perhaps added to the beginning of that guilded age (with the Jeffrey Maier play in the 1996 playoffs) but that certainly added to it over the years with their own futility, who ushered out those glory years for NY. In doing so, they took their rightful place as the team to beat moving forward in the AL East.

Tonight’s game of course is meaningless in terms of the standings, but very meaningful in the scope of the history of the game. This game is set to be Derek Jeter’s last game at Yankee Stadium, and thus an evening full of well-deserved standing ovations and poignant moments. However as it stands now the game is in jeapardy due to rain the NY area. If the game is played, Kevin Gausman is scheduled to go for the O’s; he’d be opposed by Hiroki Kuroda. Game time is scheduled for just after 7 PM.