Jimenez fails to complete five innings (O's win 6-5)

The temperature was dropping and Ubaldo Jiménez's pitch count was rising. Not a good combination by anyone's standards. Not in the first inning or any inning.

Forty-five degrees felt like 25 tonight with the wind. Thirty pitches felt like 60, but Jiménez got out of the inning with only one run allowed.

More would come. Five in 4 1/3 innings before manager Buck Showalter called upon reliever Oliver Drake.

The final blow was Gary Sanchez's two-run shot to deep left field, the second home run allowed by Jiménez. The Yankees collected seven hits and worked Jiménez for 94 pitches, including 58 for strikes.

The 30-pitch first inning was an omen.

The Orioles had time to acquire a long reliever before the second inning, but they refrained, their binge-trading for arms temporarily put on hold. And Jiménez responded by retiring the side in order on 14 pitches, but he served up a two-run homer to Matt Holliday during a 22-pitch third.

Jiménez ran the count full to the first two batters he faced, with Brett Gardner lining a single into right field and Gary Sánchez walking. Greg Bird struck out on a 91 mph fastball, but Matt Holliday poked a single into right field past a shifted Jonathan Schoop to give the Yankees an early lead.

The Orioles tied the score in the first on Seth Smith's leadoff double and Adam Jones' single, both balls shot between Bird and the bag. Chris Davis reached on an infield hit and third baseman Chase Headley hit Jones with a throw while attempting to double him off second base, but the Orioles couldn't push across the go-ahead run.

Nice little pace at this point.

The Yankees took a 3-1 lead in the third on Holliday's two-run shot to left field. The Blue Jays scored three runs against the Orioles in 20 innings in the opening series and the Yankees equaled that total in three innings.

Jiménez got a big 6-4-3 double play off Aaron Judge's bat to close out the fourth inning after Starlin Castro's leadoff single and Headley's strikeout. Drake began to warm in the fifth after Gardner's one-out double, the left fielder's third hit of the night, and Sánchez followed with a towering shot that ended Jiménez's night.

Yankees starter Luis Severino has retired seven in a row since J.J. Hardy's infield hit in the second.

Update: Manny Machado hit a three-run homer into the Orioles' bullpen in the fifth inning to cut the lead to 5-4. The estimated distance was 394 feet.

Update II: Seth Smith hit his first home run as an Oriole, a two-run shot onto the flag court in right field in the seventh. He connected off Tyler Clippard and gave the Orioles a 6-5 lead.

Update III: Donnie Hart retired one of the two batters he faced to register his first major league win, and Zach Britton recorded his second save this week, as the Orioles held on for a 6-5 win over the Yankees.