The Yankees will have to wait at least one more night to clinch the American League East.
The second-place Orioles played spoiler Tuesday night in the Bronx, defeating the Yankees, 5-3, to keep the celebratory champagne on ice.
But some of the loss was self-inflicted.
A seventh-inning Yankees rally was cut short when Gleyber Torres got caught in a rundown for a crucial third out.
Trailing 4-2 with runners on second and third, Juan Soto laced an RBI single into right field to cut the deficit to one. Third base coach Luis Rojas held Torres at third, but when Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman threw to second base as Soto slid in safely, Torres started toward home plate.
A 9-2-6-2-5-2-6 rundown ensued, and Torres was retired with Aaron Judge on deck.
Down 5-3 in the ninth, the Yankees brought the tying run to the plate, but pinch hitter Jasson Domínguez grounded out for the second out, and Alex Verdugo flied out for the third.
The Yankees entered Tuesday with a six-game lead over Baltimore in the East with six games to play, giving them a magic number of one. A win — or an Orioles loss — at any point in the season’s final week would wrap up the division for the Yankees.
But neither happened Tuesday.
The Yankees trailed, 2-0, after starter Clarke Schmidt surrendered an RBI groundout to Heston Kjerstad in the second inning and a two-out, run-scoring single to Ryan O’Hearn in the fourth.
Judge got the Yankees on the board in the bottom of the fourth with a solo shot against Baltimore starter Dean Kramer for his MLB-leading 56th home run.
Judge has now homered in three straight games and leads the majors with 139 RBI. One more RBI would make Judge the first MLB hitter to drive in 140 runs in a season since 2009.
Still trailing 2-1 in the fifth, the Yankees threatened by putting runners on first and second with no outs. Verdugo grounded into a double play, however, and Torres followed with a warning-track flyout to end the frame.
Anthony Santander put Baltimore up, 3-1, with a sixth-inning solo home run that clanged off of the right-field foul pole. It was the 44th home run of the season for Santander, who ranks second in the American League, behind only Judge.
That was the final batter faced by Schmidt, who allowed three runs and struck out seven over 5.1 innings. Schmidt owns a 2.61 ERA in four starts since returning from a lat strain that kept him out more than three months.
Colton Cowser tacked on a run in the eighth inning with a solo homer off of Ian Hamilton, completing the scoring for Baltimore.
The Yankees (92-65) and Orioles (87-60) traded blows in their divisional dogfight throughout the first five months of the season, with their head-to-head matchups repeatedly featuring tense moments and, at one point, a benches-clearing spat.
This week’s three-game series in the Bronx had long been circled as a potential winner-take-all meeting, though a September surge by the Yankees eliminated much of the urgency.
Baltimore led the East by a half-game on Sept. 6, but the Yankees pulled back into first place the next day and padded their division advantage from there. They entered Tuesday with 12 wins in their last 16 games, while Baltimore had dropped 11 of 16.
The Yankees missed the postseason last year, going just 82-80, in a season in which Judge missed 42 games due to a torn ligament in his right big toe. They retooled in the offseason by trading for Soto and Verdugo and signing starter Marcus Stroman, then bolstered their roster again with a midseason trade for Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Each has contributed to the Yankees boasting the best record in the AL, but Baltimore refused to bow out of the divisional race Tuesday.
The Yankees will try again to clinch the East on Wednesday night, with left-hander Nestor Cortes (9-10, 3.77 ERA) scheduled to start. Baltimore is set to counter with right-hander Zach Eflin (10-9, 3.53 ERA).
