Orioles hang on, take Game 2 from Yanks, 3-2

Monday night, in another game delayed by Baltimore rains, the Orioles have evened this American League Division Series with a dramatic 3-2 victory over the New York Yankees.

Oh, and The Streak lives.

With the Orioles leading the Yankees 2-1, Mark Reynolds led off the bottom of the fourth inning with a grounder toward Captain Shortstop Derek Jeter. He gathered the spheroid in good order, but his throw firstward was just a bit high and a leaping Mark “Tex” Teixeira couldn’t complete the out-making play. Up in the booth, a team official scorers determined that an average major-league shortstop making just “ordinary effort” would have made a better throw, so Captain Shortstop was charged with an “error” ... his second in the series already.

Andy Pettitte has seen a lot of Captain Derek errors in his career, though, and pitched around this one nicely. Pettitte’s got nothing on Wei-Yin Chen, though. In the top of the fifth, Chen retired the Yankees in order with only four pitches.

Wei-Yin Chen almost let the game get away from him. With one out in the fourth, Mark Teixeira singled. Russell Martin then drew a walk, which was followed by a Curtis Granderson single that was hit too hard to score Teixeira. The bases were loaded, and the Yankees’ designated hitter was up.

For a team with a lot of old guys who can’t field that well, it’s more than a little surprising that the DH in question is Eduardo Nunez. He popped out to short for the second half of the inning, bringing up Derek Jeter.

You might wonder why the Orioles have three left-handed hitters in their lineup against a left-hander like Andy Pettitte. Well, actually Andy Pettitte isn’t like most left-handers; he’s got a smaller platoon split -- over the course of his long career, anyway -- than most left-handers. Probably because Pettitte doesn’t rely overly much on his curveball; it’s mostly fastballs and cutters and some change-ups.

Chen has faced the Yankees four times this year, and he’s 1-2 with a 5.25 in those starts. It’s probably easier to list the Yankees who haven’t homered off him this year: Ichiro, Swisher, Teixeira, and Nunez have not homered off him, while the other five players in the lineup have one homer each.

Three out of the four games Chen pitched against the Yankees were at Camden Yards, too, so you can’t even blame new Yankee Stadium.