BALTIMORE — Jhony Brito gave the Yankees two good outings and two wins after throwing five innings on Saturday as New York defeated the Baltimore Orioles 4-1.
The 92-pitch night saw Brito shake off a slightly rough start in the first and hold the Orioles to a single run on three hits. It was the 25-year-old’s second major league start and saw him work out of a slow start to the game.
“That’s a good example of it doesn’t always have to be perfect,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Brito’s start. “You don’t always have to necessarily be at your best, but he made a lot of big pitches when he needed to. He was up against it a little bit potentially there in the first inning. Wiggles out of it and did everything to put us in position to win a game.”
Aaron Hicks helped tie the game in the fourth inning after the Yankees had fallen behind and Anthony Volpe’s first major league triple helped kick off a three-run fifth inning that put them ahead. Saturday’s win put the Yankees in a position to take their third straight series to open the season.
Brito has done quite the job through his first two major league starts and became the first Yankees pitcher to throw five-plus innings, give up one run or fewer and allow just three or fewer hits in their first two career starts, according to Katie Sharp.
“This is a dream ever since I was a little kid. To me, I just wanted to prove to the staff that I could pitch,” Brito said through a translator about his first two starts. “You know, this is probably the best baseball in the world. And this baseball is tough, but at the same time very grateful for the opportunity.”
The young pitcher had a slow start on Saturday giving up hits to the first two batters he faced. Anthony Santander hit a sac fly to right that scored Cedric Mullins and gave the Orioles the early lead, Brito settled in to get the next two batters to ground out.
Brito retired the next five straight batters he faced and forced Adam Frazier to ground out to first in the fourth inning stranding a runner on third. The Bombers’ starter’s two strikeouts came in his final inning of work when he battled back from a 3-0 count to get Terrin Vavra to go down looking at the end of a 10-pitch at bat.
“Nothing specifically going through my mind there,” Brito said about the battle. “But I do remember the pitching coach coming out and speaking to me. Probably a little out of my zone at the moment and I think that helped me settle back into it.”
His second strikeout ended the inning when Brito got Adley Rutschman to chase his changeup.
Hicks’ first hit of the season drove home the tying run in the fourth inning after Anthony Rizzo and Gleyber Torres both walked. The Yankees’ outfielder hit a ball on the ground through the gap between second and short to drive in Rizzo from second.
The following inning Volpe sent a ball off the wall in right field that looked like it was inches away from being his first big league home run. The triple put him in scoring position and a double by DJ LeMahieu drove in Volpe to give the Yankees the 2-1 lead.
A wild pitch moved LeMahieu to third and a sac fly by Judge made it a two-run lead.
Giancarlo Stanton hit his third home run of the season 436 feet to center field to extend New York’s lead to five. The solo shot was the 381st of his career and moved Stanton 19 home runs shy of 400.
Michael King pitched two scoreless innings of relief while striking out three, and Wandy Peralta struck out two in the eighth. Clay Holmes picked up his second save of the season striking out one, forcing another Orioles batter to line out and getting Ramon Urias to ground out to end the game.
