Yankees miss chance to clinch AL East as baserunning blunder ends rally in loss to Orioles

The Yankees clubhouse remained bone dry on Tuesday night, the tubs of champagne and beer kept in storage for at least one more day.With a chance to deliver a knockout punch to the Orioles in person and capture the American League East, the Yankees wasted a few opportunities to strike and instead fell 5-3 in The Bronx.The Yankees’ magic number to clinch the division remained at one — leading the Orioles by five games with five to play — while their magic number to secure the AL’s best record (for home-field advantage through the ALCS) stayed at three.The only thing Tuesday’s loss guaranteed was that the Orioles (87-70) will win the season series against the Yankees (92-65), which would only come into play if the Orioles win out and the Yankees lose out, with the tiebreaker going to Baltimore.The Yankees had a chance to make all of that moot, but cost themselves by running into a third out with Aaron Judge on deck in a one-run game in the bottom of the seventh inning.Trailing 4-1 entering the frame, the Yankees looked like they were going to use some late magic to clinch the division in style.

Gleyber Torres (3-for-4) ripped a ground-rule double to right field off Yennier Cano that cut the deficit to 4-2 and brought up Juan Soto with the crowd on its feet ready to explode.Soto delivered an RBI single to right field and kept running to second base on the throw home that was late trying to nab Alex Verdugo for the run that made it 4-3.Torres had initially taken a turn around third base but was nearly all the way back to the bag when he took off for home as catcher Adley Rutschmann threw to second trying to get Soto. Soto slid in safely, but the Orioles got Torres into a rundown and eventually tagged him out to end the inning and rob Judge — who had hit his 56th home run earlier in the game — of a chance to tie the game or take the lead.

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