http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/sports/baseball/orioles-power-surge-pushes-yankees-to-the-brink-of-elimination.html 2014-09-24 05:04:58 Orioles’ Power Surge Pushes Yankees to the Brink of Elimination The Yankees dropped five games back of the Royals for the A.L.’s second wild-card spot, meaning any Yankees loss or Kansas City victory will knock them from postseason contention. === Whatever modicum of a remote chance the Tuesday’s defeat dropped the Yankees five games behind the Royals for the second (and last) wild-card spot in the American League. They have only five games left in the regular season. The Orioles powered to victory at Yankee Stadium behind home runs from the ex-Yankee Kelly Johnson, Nick Markakis, who had three runs batted in, and Nelson Cruz, who blasted his 40th homer of the season. The Yankees made it close, thanks in large part to Brian McCann’s two-run homer in the seventh, which narrowed the gap to one run. With two outs in the ninth, Brett Gardner reached base on an infield single. Jeter came up to bat with a chance to extend the game, but he struck out flailing against Zach Britton, the Orioles’ closer, to end the game. The Yankees went into the game with 81 wins, hoping to secure their 22nd consecutive winning season. The last time the Yankees finished below .500 was 1992, when they went 76-86. They will have another chance to lock up a winning season Wednesday in Jeter’s last afternoon home game. His final home game is Thursday night, but the weather forecast calls for rain throughout the day. Commissioner Bud Selig was at Tuesday’s game and said he was concerned because it is the Yankees’ last scheduled home game and a makeup date would be difficult, if not impossible, to arrange. “I have heard that the weather report isn’t all that bad and the rain should be out of here,” Selig said before the game. “But I am worried about it.” Many people have bought tickets for the game because it will be Jeter’s final appearance at the Stadium. But the Yankees had more pressing issues to confront, like staying alive in the playoff race. Brandon McCarthy, the starting pitcher, didn’t help that cause. He had an unusually poor outing, allowing five runs and 11 hits in five and one-third innings. He struck out eight, Dellin Betances struck out two and David Robertson struck out one in the ninth to give the Yankees 1,319 strikeouts, surpassing the club record, set in 2012. The game got off to a gloomy start for the Yankees when Johnson homered into the right-field bleachers to lead off the second inning. The Orioles added another run later in the inning on Markakis’s run-scoring single. Markakis struck again in the fourth with a two-run homer, a line drive deep into the right-field bleachers for his 13th homer. The Yankees scratched back one of those runs in the bottom of the fourth. Chase Headley drew a one-out walk, Teixeira was back in the lineup after missing two games with recurring soreness in his right wrist. He underwent a third cortisone shot this season to alleviate the inflammation and said it was worthwhile because the Yankees still had a chance to make the playoffs. But Teixeira was also looking toward next year, when he hopes to put the wrist uncertainty behind him for good. (He tore a tendon sheath in the wrist during spring training in 2013 and had surgery later that year.) He said the key will be off-season exercises to eliminate the tendinitis and strengthen the wrist. “We need to get into the strengthening point,” he said. “The strength will help the inflammation stay out of there. Hopefully the little things in my legs that happened this year, I just need to get stronger from top to bottom, but especially the wrist.” Teixeira, who came into the game with 21 home runs and a .216 batting average in 119 games, has been one of the many offensive players who have had bad years for the Yankees, partly explaining why they are so close to elimination. INSIDE PITCH BUD SELIG presented DEREK JETER with the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award and donated $222,222 to Jeter’s Turn 2 Foundation. Selig has handed out the award 15 times since its inception in 1998, most recently to MARIANO RIVERA. Selig said he would do whatever he could to help Jeter in his quest to become a part owner of a team in the future. Selig also said that once ALEX RODRIGUEZ has served his one-season suspension for performance enhancing drugs, Major League Baseball will have no issue with his return in 2015.