Yankees’ infield gets in work before Sunday game at Camden Yards
Yankees infielders Amed Rosario, Jose Caballero and Ben Rice preparing before the Sept. 21, 2025 game vs. the Orioles at Camden Yards.
BALTIMORE – Down in Birdland, Aaron Boone surveyed the chaotic AL playoff races with a mix of curiosity and distance.
“It’s going to be a wild week for sure,’’ said the Yankees manager, who’s “certainly paying attention to it all’’ as things unfold in the other division races and in the shifting wild card scene.
As the AL wild card leaders entering MLB’s final regular season week, the Yankees at least control their own postseason fate.
“Every game is so important,” Ben Rice said Sunday, after his 10th inning grand slam launched the Yankees toward a 7-1 win against the pesky, last-place Orioles at Camden Yards.
Mostly, Rice is “happy with where the team is at, with a chance to take the division” and with “some important games coming up” to punch a playoff ticket.
With another healthy dose of Yankees rooters among the 31,974 fans, the Yanks (88-68) maintained at least a two-game lead over the Boston Red Sox for the top AL wild card, with six games remaining.
At Kansas City, the AL East-leading Blue Jays snapped a four-game losing streak to keep their two-game division lead over the Yanks, who do not hold the tiebreaker against Toronto.
Batting against lefty Keegan Akin with none out, the lefty-hitting Rice smashed a 1-and-2 fastball over the right field wall for a 5-1 lead.
It was Rice’s second career grand slam and the 14th clubbed this year by the Yankees, who lead the majors with 263 homers – already the eighth most in a single season by any MLB club.
That capped a four-hit, five-RBI game for Rice, set up in the 10th by a walk to Aaron Judge (the O’s chose to pitch to him with a base open) and Cody Bellinger’s single to greet Akin.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. added his 31st homer of the year, a solo shot, in the Yankees’ six-run 10th inning, and Boone’s bullpen completed 4.2 scoreless relief innings – starting Tim Hill and highlighted by Devin Williams, who struck out the side in the eighth.
“(We’re) going to be locked in the next (six) games,” said rookie Cam Schlittler, as the Yanks ended their season-long 10-game road trip with a 7-3 record – with stops at Boston and Minnesota before winning three of four games at the Inner Harbor.
Vying for a postseason rotation spot behind veteran lefties Max Fried and Carlos Rodon, the right-handed Schlitter flashed his high-octane fastball Sunday.
All six of Schlittler’s strikeouts came via fastballs that registered 98-mph and 99-mph.
Schlittler lasted 5.1 innings, and the only run against him was on Samuel Basallo’s leadoff homer in the fifth, attacking a first-pitch curveball for a 1-0 Baltimore lead.
“A little slip-up in command in the fifth,” said Schlittler, but “it was a good feeling to make pitches and get guys out” during a nice bounce back start.
Schlittler was coming off a four-run, 4.2-inning no-decision last Tuesday at Minnesota that saw him issue a season-high five walks.
“When he lives in the strike zone, he’s capable of being really successful,” Boone said of Schlittler, with a 2.81 ERA over his last 10 starts since Aug. 2.
The Yanks tied it 1-1 in the sixth on Rice’s two-out, RBI single following a Trent Grisham walk and Judge being hit by a pitch near the right forearm.
But the Yanks missed a chance at more as Jasson Dominguez’s drive was snared by Dylan Carlson running toward the left-center field gap.
In his fifth start back from Tommy John surgery rehab, O’s right-hander Kyle Bradish yielded just that one run over six innings, with two hits, two walks and nine strikeouts.
Tied 1-1 in the seventh, the Yanks had Jose Caballero on second base and one out when Boone opted to send up Paul Goldschmidt as a pinch-hitter with Giancarlo Stanton also available.
After Goldschmidt grounded out, keeping Caballero at second base, Boone pinch-hit Stanton for Ryan McMahon.
A day after clubbing a three-run homer – the 450th home run of his career – Stanton was predictably passed to first base on an intentional walk by lefty reliever Dietrich Enns, who then struck out the lefty-hitting Grisham to end the inning.