Montgomery bumpy as Yankees fall to O's 10-6

BALTIMORE - Maikel Franco homered and drove in three runs, rookie Bruce Zimmermann came out of the bullpen to hold down the Yankees and Baltimore Orioles avoided a three-game sweep by rallying to beat New York 10-6 Sunday.

"It was a great comeback from our guys," Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. "We had a lot of tough losses here in the last week to two weeks."

Aaron Judge homered for the third straight game and went 6 for 10 with four home runs and five RBIs in the series.

But former Sumter High pitcher Jordan Montgomery failed to hold leads of 4-0 in the first inning and 5-2 in the third, and New York dropped to 1-6 this season when trying to complete a series sweep.

"He had a hard time putting some guys away," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "I thought they had some good at-bats off him. A couple of times he tried to show them the fastball late in the count, two strikes, he didn't get it where he wanted to. There were some mistakes with that."

Baltimore is 6-15 at Camden Yards, the worst home record in the major leagues.

Montgomery gave up five runs and six hits in three innings, raising his ERA to 4.75. He had allowed two runs over 11 innings in two previous starts against the Orioles this season.

"I am going to have to a look at it tomorrow and make it better," Montgomery said. "A lot of things could have gone differently today."

Baltimore went ahead for good at 6-5 in the fourth on Trey Mancini's two-out RBI double off Michael King (0-1). Mancini has 32 RBIs in 40 games.

Franco had three hits, including a two-run homer off Wandy Peralta in the seventh that opened an 8-5 lead. Rookie Ryan Mountcastle added a two-run single against Luis Cessa in the eighth and finished with a season-high four RBIs.

New York is 6-4 against the Orioles, but the teams won't meet again until Aug. 2-4 in the Bronx.

Zimmermann (2-3), recalled from Triple-A Norfolk prior to the game, allowed one run and two hits over 5 2/3 innings with six strikeouts and one walk after Adam Plutko gave up four runs in the first inning in his first start this season after 15 relief appearances. Pluto's ERA rose from 1.27 to 2.82.

"That was the idea to kind of get through the top of the lineup once so I hopefully only had to face them twice," Zimmermann said. "I was prepared to go the starter amount of innings and get back to bearing down in the zone."

Gary Sánchez and Clint Frazier hit consecutive homers in the first. The Yankees have hit 63 homers in 23 games in Baltimore since 2019.

"We go out and get four in that first inning and obviously, you feel good about it," Boone said. "We just were not able to add on and they chipped away."

Mountcastle hit an RBI double in the bottom half and score on Pedro Severino's single. Judge homered in the second - seven of his 12 homers this season have come against Baltimore.

Baltimore tied the score 5-5 in the third on Mountcastle's sacrifice fly, Franco's RBI double and Freddy Galvis' run-scoring single.

YANKEES COVID-19 UPDATE

The Yankees had another positive COVID-19 test, this one involving a staff member, manager Aaron Boone said before the game. Boone did not identify the staff member, saying he was part of the team's support staff. The Yankees have had nine total positives within the traveling party since Monday - three coaches, five staffers and shortstop Gleyber Torres.

MOVES

Orioles: INF Ramón Urías was optioned to Norfolk. Urias was 12-for-53 (.226) with two doubles, a home run, six RBIs and 17 strikeouts.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Yankees: OF Aaron Hicks was placed on the 10-day IL, retro to May 13, after tearing a tendon sheath in his left wrist. The Yankees selected the contract of OF Ryan LaMarre from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and he started in center field. He went 0 for 3 in his first big league appearance since Sept. 29, 2019, with Minnesota. ... DH Giancarlo Stanton (left quad tightness) was held out of the lineup for a third consecutive game.

UP NEXT

Yankees: RHP Gerrit Cole (5-1, 1.37 ERA) will start the series opener Monday in Texas. Cole is 5-2 with a 3.75 ERA in 10 starts against the Rangers.

Orioles: Hyde had not announced a starter for the series opener Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Rays.