Rough night at the office: O's outscored 16-1 in twinbill

Since the New York Mets' Michael Conforto made that incredible catch with the bases loaded against the Orioles in the sixth on Wednesday night, it seems not a lot has gone right for the club.

Tonight, they got blanked in the first game by the New York Yankees, and then the Baltimore defense came unglued in the last of the first in the nightcap. The Orioles came up very flat twice tonight as they lost a doubleheader to the Yankees to start an important four-game series.

The O's lost 6-0 and 10-1. They had scored 56 runs in the previous nine games, going 6-3.

They fall to 20-24, have lost three in a row and are now 3 1/2 games behind New York for the American League's No. 8 playoff spot with 16 to play. They were 1 1/2 games out as play began today at about 4:05 p.m.

Trying to split this series, lefty Keegan Akin took the mound with a 1-0 lead in the nightcap. DJ Stewart had homered for the sixth time in six games in the first to give Baltimore a 1-0 lead.

But the O's greatly aided New York's four-run rally in the home first, which Akin did not survive. DJ LeMahieu led off with a walk and moved to second on Luke Voit's single. Aaron Hicks then flied to left and the Yankees tried to run on O's left fielder Ryan Mountcastle. He one-hopped a throw to Rio Ruiz at third and Ruiz could not come up with the ball on what looked like it would be a 7-5 double play. Both runners advanced. Then Clint Frazier grounded to short and José Iglesias bounced a throw home. Chance Sisco could not come up with that ball, scored a fielder's choice, and it was 1-0. Gleyber Torres then singled in the second run. Frazier took third and Torres moved into second when Mullins threw home. The throw was offline and over the head of the cutoff man.

Misplays or poor throws and plays that could have been made or should have made marked the Yankees' four-run inning. If the Hicks fly ball was turned into a double play, things may have gone very differently.

Luke Voit hit a three-run shot in the fourth in the nightcap off Asher Wojciechowski to blow this completely open. He hit another one off Wojciechowski an inning later to put an exclamation point on the Yankees' second win of the night. He gave up six runs in 1 2/3 innings.

The Yankees are now 24-21. Coming into today they had lost eight of 11 and 15 of their previous 21 games. They had lost four straight series for the first time since June 2017.

In the opener, Alex Cobb allowed three homers and Gerrit Cole pitched a two-hitter with nine strikeouts as the Yankees won 6-0. The O's went just 2-for-24 off Cole with a pair of singles. Cole improved to 5-3 with a 3.20 ERA. He got 27 swings and misses among his 114 pitches. That ties for the second most by a Yankee in the last 10 years.

Cobb allowed five runs in four innings in his first start in 12 days. LeMahieu led off the game with a homer and he gave up two-run shots to Brett Gardner and Kyle Higashioka. The O's were down 5-0 in the second.

It was a pretty miserable night of baseball for Baltimore. Now they sleep fast and try to regroup Saturday at 1:05 p.m.