Heath Bintliff: Orioles need some Yankee killers

As the Orioles struggled to put up runs in a 15 innings struggle last night, it got me thinking that we really needed a Yankee killer to come to the plate and put this one away. Someone. Anyone to get that big hit. So who are/were the greatest Yankee killers in Oriole history? I looked up the Baltimore players who racked up the most big games against the Bronx Bombers in Orioles history

                 Multiple HR games
Boog Powell             4
Brooks Robinson         2
Ramon Hernandez         2
Doug DeCinces           2

                     3+ hit games
Brooks Robinson            20
Boog Powell                15
Brian Roberts              14
Nick Markakis              14
Miguel Tejada              13
B.J. Surhoff               11
Cal Ripken Jr.             11
Al Bumbry                  11

                   3+ RBI games
Brooks Robinson         9
Boog Powell             9
Miguel Tejada           8
Aubrey Huff             8
Cal Ripken Jr.          7
B.J. Surhoff            7

                    Multiple extra-base hit games

Boog Powell                    10
Brooks Robinson                 9
Eddie Murray                    7
Cal Ripken Jr.                  7
Nick Markakis                   7 
Ramon Hernandez                 6
Rafael Palmeiro                 6
Curt Blefary                    6

I suppose it's no surprise that Brooks and Boog had a bunch of big games against New York, given their long careers, but Powell was an absolute monster. I suppose you could make the argument that he is the greatest Yankee killer of them all. Other notables are Miguel Tejada and Aubrey Huff, who despite their relatively short stays in Baltimore had some fine games against the Yanks. But Nick Markakis is one a couple of those lists and narrowly missed a couple of the others. He went 2-for-6 with a walk last night. Also narrowly missing multiple lists was Brian Roberts (although he does appear on the list of multi-hit games). It is a different offensive team with Roberts in the lineup and I have to think, even with his struggles thisseason, that he would have been in the middle of a game-winning rally had he been healthy. Adam Jones also missed a couple of these lists and it is little surprise that he and Nick were right in the middle of the 9th inning rally to tie the game against Mariano Rivera. My guess is that Matt Wieters will develop into quite a Yankee Killer too. Wieters went 3-for-7. How great is it to see him playing so well this season? It's a tough loss, no doubt. And the O's need someone to step up against their division rival. Another chance comes tonight. Heath Bintliff blogs about the Orioles at Dempsey's Army. His ruminations about the Birds appear as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our site. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.