NEW YORK (AP) - After a week of popups, the Baltimore Orioles showed off real pop.
Delmon Young, Adam Jones and Matt Wieters homered as Baltimore teed off for 20 hits, battering the New York Yankees 14-5 Tuesday.
“It was a lot of fun,” reigning major league home run champion Chris Davis said. “It was a long game. It was long - in a good way.”
After a 2-5 start in which they totaled just 22 runs, the Orioles broke loose. Young and Wieters each drove in three runs, and Jones delivered one of Baltimore’s four doubles at a half-empty Yankee Stadium.
Everyone in Baltimore’s starting lineup got a hit and scored a run. The Orioles posted their second-highest hit total in the Bronx, eclipsed only by a 22-hit outburst in 1986.
“Everybody’s trying to find it right now,” Davis said. “It felt good, as an offense, to score some runs.”
By the late innings, the game took on a spring training feel. The Yankees pulled several starters and the often-demanding crowd didn’t even bother to boo while the Birds ran around the bases.
There was a big cheer, however, when two fans sprinted onto the grass and were tackled in the outfield by a wave of security personnel.
Jones said it was “stupid” for anyone to trespass on the field and said the punishment should be harsh.
“They should let us have a shot to kick ’em with our metal spikes,” the All-Star center fielder said.
Wei-Yin Chen (1-1) weathered five innings for the win, giving up four runs and nine hits.
Ivan Nova (1-1) was tagged for seven runs and 10 hits in 3 2-3 innings.
For all the big hits, it was a little grounder that helped things get out of hand at the start.
After Nick Markakis led off the game with a single, Young followed with a bouncer up the middle. Many shortstops in the majors could’ve turned it into a double play, but 39-year-old Derek Jeter couldn’t quite get to it and the ball skipped under his glove for a single.
“He dove. He did everything he could to make that play,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.
Davis followed with a sacrifice fly, and Jones hit his first homer of the season for a 3-0 lead. The Orioles chased Nova with a three-run fourth that made it 7-1 and added four more in the sixth.
Alfonso Soriano and Kelly Johnson hit solo home runs for the Yankees. Rookie Yangervis Solarte struck again, too, with a pair of doubles - he’s 11 for 24 overall.
Solarte is the first player since 1900 with at least six doubles in the first seven games of his career, the Yankees said, citing the Elias Sports Bureau.
Young was 1 for 6 this season before manager Buck Showalter gave him this start. The designated hitter had an RBI single in the fourth that finished Nova and added his first homer, a two-run drive in the sixth. Wieters connected in the eighth.
Ryan Flaherty also had three hits for the Orioles after starting the year in a 1-for-21 rut. One of his hits was an early bunt single when Francisco Cervelli, a catcher making his first pro appearance at first base, ranged too far wide and in to field the ball.
Steve Lombardozzi, Flaherty and Jonathan Schoop, the bottom three hitters in Baltimore’s lineup, started out 6 for 6.
NOTES: Showalter said the Orioles would make a roster move Wednesday, but declined to provide details. The team could be ready to call up RHP Kevin Gausman from Triple-A. … Carlos Beltran’s RBI double marked the first run permitted by Baltimore in the first inning this season. … Nova had allowed four or fewer earned runs in 24 straight starts since September 2012. That was tied with Hiroki Kuroda for the longest such string by a Yankees pitcher since Ron Guidry’s 27-game streak ended in 1982. … With David Robertson on the disabled list, Yankees manager Joe Girardi said RHP Shawn Kelley will likely be the closer. … Orioles SS J.J. Hardy was out of the starting lineup for the third game in a row because of back spasms. … Soriano hit his 407th career home run. … RHP Masahiro Tanaka (1-0) starts the series finale Wednesday night in his Yankee Stadium debut vs. RHP Miguel Gonzalez (0-1).
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