


BALTIMORE — Aaron Judge has picked up where he left off last year, and Franchy Cordero is doing his best imitation of 2022 Matt Carpenter.
With Nestor Cortes on the mound pitching like the All-Star he blossomed into last season, there was a familiar feel to Sunday afternoon’s Yankees victory.
Judge launched a pair of home runs, Cordero cracked his second in three games and the Yankees held off the Orioles 5-3 to take the series at Camden Yards.
The Yankees (6-3), who head to Cleveland, have split the first two games of all three series this season and are 3-0 in the rubber games.
Judge, who extended his career-best on-base streak to 42 games with a first-inning single, smacked a third-inning dinger to center against Baltimore’s Tyler Wells, who surrendered the 35th and 36th homers of Judge’s historic 2022 season.
In the seventh, Judge blasted off against righty Logan Gillaspie, another solo shot that gave Judge 28 career multi-homer games.
Through nine games, Judge has crushed four homers.
After nine games last season, Judge had sent just one into the seats.
Giancarlo Stanton contributed an RBI single in the first inning, but Judge’s bash brother Sunday was Cordero, who smoked a two-run shot to right off Wells in the fifth inning.
The Yankees brought in Cordero, a powerful lefty who is playing against opposing righties over Aaron Hicks and recent call-up Willie Calhoun, on the eve of Opening Day.
The move was a surprise, but it might have been a surprise Cordero was even available: The toolsy outfielder hit .413 with a pair of home runs in 18 spring games with the Orioles, who cut him at the tail end of camp.
Cordero surely remembers the release.
In two games against Baltimore, the 28-year-old went 3-for-5 with two homers and two walks.
After four games, it is too soon to call Cordero the new Carpenter — a corner-outfield, lefty-hitting revelation last season, when he revived his career with the Yankees and drilled 15 home runs in 47 games — but the early returns are promising.
Cordero, who has played in fewer than half the Yankees’ games, is tied with Judge for the team’s RBI lead with seven.
The big swings were more than enough for Cortes, who pitched 5 ¹/₃ solid innings in which he was charged with two runs, both of which scored after he exited the game.
Cortes had to overcome a pair of issues: his glove and Adley Rutschman.
The lefty pitched in the first inning with a dark glove that had “44” etched in white coloring on the outside, bottom of the glove.
Cortes had a long talk with home-plate umpire Bill Miller after the first and appeared unhappy as he walked into the dugout.
He emerged for the second inning with the coloring darkened.
The second issue was more significant and not limited to Cortes.
Rutschman, the star Orioles catcher, finished 4-for-4, including an eighth-inning home run against Jimmy Cordero.
Of the four hits Cortes allowed, three came off Rutschman’s bat.
It was Rutschman who dropped in a one-out single in the sixth inning against Cortes before Ryan Mountcastle doubled to left.
With two on and one out, manager Aaron Boone turned to Albert Abreu, whose first pitch to Anthony Santander was blistered down the right-field line for a two-run double to cut the gap to 4-2.
But Judge and the Yankees’ bullpen — which included Clay Holmes’ third save of the season and second in as many games — ensured the Orioles would not get any closer.