The New York Yankees turned Camden Yards into a launching pad Saturday night, blasting five home runs en route to a 15-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. Sabathia pitched eight innings for the victory, and is now 9-1 in his career at Camden Yards.
The Yankees hit three of their five home runs during a seven-run eighth inning, highlighted by a grand slam from Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez drove in six runs and is now hitting .370 this season. Russell Martin hit two home runs, one in the eighth inning. Jorge Posada and Brett Gardner also homered for the Yankees.
Coming into the game, the Yankees led the majors with 30 home runs and were tops in baseball with 10 multi-homer outings this season. Saturday's burst of longballs set a new franchise record for home runs in the first 17 games of a season with 35. The old mark was 33 in 2003.
Rodriguez also moved ahead of Carl Yastrzemski into 10th on the all-time list with 1,847 RBI after a 2-for-5, six-RBI effort for the Yankees, who have won four of five.
Baltimore has now lost 10 of its last 12.