Yankees' bats silenced, Aaron Boone ejected in loss to Orioles at the Stadium

In some respects, Aaron Boone took the easy way out.

Ejected between the top of the third inning and the bottom half Thursday night while arguing balls and strikes, Boone missed the vast majority of the Yankees’ 3-1 loss to the Orioles at the Stadium in which the offense produced three hits.

The Yankees (30-22), after a stirring come-from-behind victory over the Orioles (33-17) Tuesday night, dropped the last two games of the series.

“We didn’t generate a whole lot,” Boone said afterward.

Wednesday night Nestor Cortes and the bullpen coughed up a 5-1 lead in the seventh, leading to a 9-6 loss. Thursday night the Yankees would have been thrilled with such an output from the offense, which had one hit through the first six innings.

The Yankees scored with two outs in the ninth when Willie Calhoun doubled in Aaron Judge, who led off the inning against Yennier Cano with a walk. Anthony Volpe flied to center to end it.

Clarke Schmidt (2-5, 5.58) battled command issues throughout five laborious innings, but allowed just one run to go along with five hits and two walks.

His counterpart, righthander Kyle Gibson (6-3, 3.82), was tremendous, allowing two hits over seven scoreless innings in which he walked four and struck out three.

“He did a really good job of just mixing different parts of the zone with multiple pitches,” Harrison Bader said. “He’s difficult to square up.”

Boone, the American League leader in ejections last season with nine, was tossed by plate umpire Edwin Moscoso in the third inning. Boone is the AL leader in that category this season with four. Three of those ejections have occurred since May 15, including last Sunday in Cincinnati.

Schmidt did not allow a run in the first inning but did require 29 pitches as he allowed a two-out infield single and consecutive walks to Ryan Mountcastle and Gunnar Henderson to load the bases.

Boone felt Schmidt, who got Austin Hays to foul out to escape the jam, was getting squeezed by Moscoso, driving up his pitch count.

“I thought there were some issues big-time the first couple of innings,” said Boone, who also used the word “egregious” in describing the strike zone (Orioles manager Brandon Hyde, incidentally, also didn’t seem pleased with it). “He shouldn’t have had to throw almost 30 pitches in that first inning.”

Schmidt stranded two more runners in the third, getting out of it when Henderson lined out to Anthony Rizzo.

Between innings, Boone was thrown out by Moscoso, the plate umpire responsible for one of his nine ejections last season. Boone had to be held back several different times by bench coach Carlos Mendoza and crew chief Chris Guccione, and Boone said that tirade was a result of Moscoso being “dismissive” of him and not willing to engage.

Though it states clearly in the rule book arguing balls and strikes is grounds for automatic ejection, some umpires will let players and/or managers at least discuss the strike zone at times. Boone didn’t feel what he initially said warranted being tossed.

“I should not have been thrown out of that game,” he said. “I was very calm, didn’t do much at all . . . the dismissive attitude [by Moscoso] and walking away, I took exception to.”

Adam Frazier doubled with one out in the fifth and, after Adley Rutschman lined out to left, Anthony Santander poked a single to right, bringing in Frazier for a 1-0 lead.

Wandy Peralta walked Santander to start the eighth and walked Henderson with one out. Clay Holmes came on and allowed a two-run double to Hays off the top of the wall in right to make it 3-0.

Not surprisingly, afterward it was Boone’s ejection commanding most of the attention.

“I made an emphasis to thank him,” Schmidt said. “We’re going to war out there for sure, all players, we’re fighting tooth and nail out there so to see your manager out there fighting tooth and nail for you as well, it’s a good feeling. I know he’s always going to have our backs, and you saw that tonight.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.