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
The high pop up by the Orioles’ Ramon Urias hung in the air for a while, with both Jose Trevino and DJ LeMahieu seeming to have a play on the foul ball.
Instead, the ball fell between the two Yankees, with the players looking at each other as the Stadium crowd booed loudly.
That was a familiar sound in The Bronx on Thursday night during an unsightly 14-1 loss to the Orioles, which featured a 20-hit barrage from Baltimore and a second straight disastrous start from Luis Severino.
A no-show from a Yankees lineup that manager Aaron Boone had shuffled up in an effort to spark a struggling offense didn’t help.
The Yankees, who ended up with a split in the four-game series with second-place Baltimore, are four games out of the top AL wild-card spot and are battling the Blue Jays for the final entry.
All of it made for an ugly night at the Stadium, where Josh Donaldson and Giancarlo Stanton have been jeered pretty consistently and former Yankee Aaron Hicks had been heckled for three days straight before the new Oriole was a late scratch on Thursday.
The main target of all the booing was Severino, who is heading into the All-Star break a mess.
The 29-year-old, who allowed a season-high nine runs, seven earned, in four innings at St. Louis in his previous outing, was nearly as bad on Thursday.
He gave up seven runs — all earned — along with 10 hits in just 2 ²/₃ innings, and he needed 77 pitches to get that far.
It was a sign that even with Carlos Rodon set to join the rotation on Friday, the Yankees still have questions about their pitching.
Gunnar Henderson led off the game with a homer, and after Severino escaped a 30-pitch second inning unscathed, he gave up three screaming hits to start the third.
Anthony Santander opened with a 111-mph single to right and scored on Ryan O’Hearn’s 100-mph double to left.
Cedric Mullins made it 3-0 with a 103-mph double to right.
Jordan Westburg then doubled down the left-field line to drive in Mullins.
After Adam Frazier singled to center, the Stadium crowd booed Severino loudly as pitching coach Matt Blake went to the mound.
Severino whiffed Urias for the second out, but he was yanked after Henderson hit an RBI single and heard more jeers as he walked off the mound.
He was replaced by Albert Abreu — who was even worse, giving up six runs while retiring just two batters.
It was just the latest poor outing for Severino, whose ERA jumped to 7.38 — not likely what he had planned on as he heads into free agency.
His subpar performance is ill-timed, especially combined with the fact he hasn’t pitched a full healthy season since 2018.
As bad as the pitching was, the Yankees’ offense was nearly as brutal against Kyle Braddish.
The Baltimore right-hander hadn’t allowed more than two runs in any of his previous four starts and dominated the Yankees on Thursday.
Braddish retired 11 of the first 12 batters he faced, with only Anthony Rizzo reaching on a two-out single in the first.
They didn’t get another hit until Gleyber Torres singled with one out in the sixth inning and were an out away from being shutout before Billy McKinney’s RBI single in the ninth.
A lineup that has largely underperformed in the absence of Aaron Judge — just 25th in runs scored over the last month — got nothing going on Thursday after mostly being shut down by Dean Kremer in the loss Wednesday.
Boone mixed up the lineup, putting Anthony Volpe back in the leadoff spot, with Rizzo third, Harrison Bader at cleanup and the slumping LeMahieu seventh — a spot he hadn’t started in all year.
It didn’t work.
More drama surfaced in the top of the eighth inning, when Wandy Peralta nearly hit O’Hearn with a 95-mph sinker up and in and then drilled Colton Cowser with another 95-mph sinker, prompting a warning to both teams from the umpires — which caused Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde to be ejected.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa pitched a scoreless ninth in his fourth appearance on the mound already this season.