BALTIMORE — After everyone involved with the game cooled down late Friday night from the fuss over clearing the benches at Camden Yards, Aaron Boone spoke with Orioles manager Brandon Hyde.
The conversation went “fine,” Boone said, and he did not want to discuss it further with reporters on Saturday afternoon.
But whether the bad blood on display on Friday night – and which seemed to be simmering beneath the surface in their previous series this season – would carry over into the rest of the weekend remained to be seen.
Clay Holmes’ 0-2 sinker that hit Heston Kjerstad on the head in the ninth inning was clearly not intentional, as rain began to fall and the Yankees were two outs away from a 4-1 victory.
Friday night. Getty Images
The Orioles didn’t seem to challenge that idea, and the Yankees didn’t have much trouble with Hyde standing up for Kjerstad and running toward the Yankees’ dugout — he said he was responding to their coaches — leading to a heated shoving match on the benches.
But there was also the feeling, at least among the Yankees, that there was too much at stake in this series to get caught up in the tension that would continue throughout the weekend.
After winning Friday night, the Yankees moved just one game behind the Orioles in first place in the AL East.
“We play too much to get caught up in that,” Boone said. “We’ve got to play well, we’ve got to win games. Same goes for them.”
The most immediate result of Friday’s chaos was that Kjerstad was left out of the Orioles’ lineup on Saturday and then placed on the seven-day concussion list just minutes before first pitch.
The rookie left fielder was initially in the lineup, but did not feel 100 percent after pre-game drills.
In terms of long-term effects, the Yankees and Orioles will only have to play each other once more this year after this weekend. That series will take place in the final week of the regular season in the Bronx, when the AL East is on the line.
“They’re the two best teams in the division,” Holmes said. “I think there’s a very competitive atmosphere. We know these games mean something and we’re here to show what we can do. Two teams going at each other like that, you feel the atmosphere, you feel the competitive energy. I think that’s what’s happening here in this series.”
Through Saturday, Yankees pitchers had hit the Orioles 10 times this season.
Orioles pitchers had hit the Yankees just three times, but there was some frustration in the Yankees locker room last month during a series in which the Orioles threw several high and tight batters (including Aaron Judge and Gleyber Torres both getting hit on the hand).
“Jumping in is part of the game,” Hyde told reporters Saturday. “Whether they hit more guys than we did is not something I’m really worried about right now. I want to win and what we did was win a lot.”
Hyde provided more fireworks on Friday by first yelling at Holmes and then charging the Yankees’ dugout.
“I was emotional,” Hyde said a day later. “My guy got hit in the head and I may have said some things that I reacted to at the time.”
Gerrit Cole, whose best start to the season was overshadowed by the late-game battle on Friday, described the tension between the two teams as “just good, hard baseball.”
“The intensity level has pretty much stayed that way all year,” Cole said. “So I expect it to stay consistent.”
Both the Yankees and Orioles got off to a rocky start on Friday. The Yankees had lost 18 of their last 25 games, and the Orioles had been thoroughly outplayed by the Cubs, losing 12 of their last 20 games.
It remained to be seen to what extent momentum could be gained from what happened in the ninth inning on Friday evening.
“Anytime the benches are empty, all the guys come together,” Judge said. “But it’s baseball. You’re going to have tough times, you’re going to have good times, bad times, you’re going to have times where the benches are empty. But we’ve got to stay together in this room and stay focused on what we can do to go out there and keep playing.”