Dylan Crews’ first career hit figured to be a memorable one. And it was, a laser of a double off the left field wall in his first at-bat Tuesday night against a Cy Young Award winner.

And then for good measure, the Nationals rookie added another hit later in the game, stole his first base and scored his first run, then caught the final two outs of his team’s 4-2 victory over the Yankees.

“Overall, I thought today was awesome,” the 22-year-old outfielder said. “And we won, so it was a great day.”

Crews’ major league debut Monday turned out to be nondescript. He put together some quality at-bats but ultimately went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout. And he didn’t have much opportunity to make an impact on the bases or in the field.

Tuesday’s game presented a very different opportunity, with Crews front and center for multiple big moments over the course of the night.

In Game 2 of this series between the Orioles and Yankees at Yankee Stadium tonight, a rookie making his third major league start faces the 2023 American League Cy Young Award winner.

It's lefty Cade Povich for the Orioles versus right-hander Gerrit Cole for the Yankees. Cole went 15-4 with a 2.63 ERA last season with a 0.981 WHIP in winning his first Cy Young Award. He has now finished in the top five in the voting six times and second or higher three times.

He has 1,859 career innings on his resume compared to 11 1/3 for Povich. He has made 300 starts in the bigs to two for the O's southpaw.

But Cole is making his 2024 season debut after going on the 60-day injured list March 28 with right elbow inflammation. He made two starts at Double-A and one at Triple-A in rehab outings leading into tonight. In those games, he threw 45, 57 and 70 pitches for a combined 12 1/3 innings, allowing six hits and one earned run with no walks and 19 strikeouts.

Cole faced the Orioles twice last year, going 0-0 with a 3.75 ERA over 12 innings. In 12 career games and starts versus the Orioles, he is 5-3 with a 2.55 ERA and 0.940 WHIP, allowing a .203 batting average and .572 OPS. 

One pitcher tonight will be making his third MLB start while the other has made 300. One will be looking for his first major league win while the other has 145. O's rookie Cade Povich pitched 11 1/3 innings his first two starts while the Yankees' Gerrit Cole has 1,859 innings under his belt.

Povich can't even think about winning Cy Young Awards. He just wants to establish his MLB career. Not only has Cole finished in the top five for the Cy Young Award six times, he's been in the top two three times and was the AL Cy Young Winner just last year when he went 15-4 with a 2.63 ERA. Tonight, it's Povich against Cole in Game 2 of this series.

Reverse lock anyone?

The Orioles have gone 21 straight AL East series without losing one. But if they are to keep that streak going, they need to win the next two nights in the Bronx against the defending Cy Young winner in the American League one night and the next beat the pitcher in right-hander Luis Gil, who leads the AL currently in ERA.

Hey, the Orioles won their series at home with Philadelphia after losing the series opener on Friday night.

NEW YORK – If Cade Povich made a previous trip to New York, the memory isn’t sharp enough to cut through the fog.

“Maybe one time for like a night,” he said, “but other than that, no.”

Povich isn’t a tourist this week. His third major league start is coming tonight and he’s facing the team that’s blocking the Orioles from first place.

“It’s definitely going to be cool,” he said, certain that he hadn’t stepped inside Yankee Stadium before yesterday. “Knowing from watching games and growing up around baseball, it’s probably going to be a rowdy atmosphere, but at the same time probably pretty fun.

“We played in Regionals at Arkansas and it was pretty rowdy there, and I had a blast pitching there. Honestly, just real excited for it.”

While the Orioles know they will begin their season without either right-hander Kyle Bradish or lefty John Means in their pitching rotation, they now also know that the New York Yankees will begin the year without 2023 American League Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole.

Cole and the Yankees got some good news this week, in that his elbow ailment seems limited to inflammation and no surgery or procedures will be needed. But reports say he will miss one-to-two months or as one report put it, as many as 10-to-12 weeks.

If it’s on the long side of things, he could be out until around mid-June give or take a week or so. The Orioles play the Yankees four times from April 29-May 2 and three times from June 18-20. But more than the potential seven games he could miss between the teams, it’s the nearly half-season of games he might miss.

Since 2020 with the Yankees, Cole has gone 51-23 with a 3.08 ERA and 1.011 WHIP and is consistently among the best pitchers in the game. He has twice finished second for the Cy Young award and been in the top five six times.

Last season he was 15-4 with a 2.63 ERA and 0.981 WHIP with 222 strikeouts. He was a unanimous winner of the Cy Young award with the O’s Bradish finishing fourth in the voting.

It was a matchup of two right-handers who can bring 100 mph heat. One with a big career resume and one with big hopes for a brilliant MLB career.

On this night, the Orioles’ Grayson Rodriguez, once ranked the top pitching prospect in baseball, was matching Gerrit Cole, a six-time All-Star and six-time top 10 finisher in the Cy Young vote.

This classic old school pitchers' duel was turned over late to the bullpens and both kept the zeroes going well into the night and early Saturday morning. 

Then suddenly with one swing of Anthony Santander's bat, it was over.

He drilled a Tommy Kahnle 2-0 changeup over the right field wall with one out in the ninth for a 1-0 walk-off win over New York. It was Santander's second career walk-off homer and the 425-foot blast was his 18th on the year.

It is only 11 at-bats, but in that small sample, the Orioles’ Ramón Urías is batting .455 with a slugging percentage of .909 against Yankees’ right-hander Gerrit Cole.

Cole (9-2, 2.78 ERA) will face the Orioles tonight for the second time this year and for the 12^th time in his career. On May 23 of this season he had one of his worst starts of the year against the Orioles, allowing five runs and six hits over five innings. Cedric Mullins and Gunnar Henderson hit solo homers that night.

But over 11 career games, Cole is 5-3 with a 2.80 ERA, a .600 OPS and a WHIP of 0.991 against the Orioles.

Urías is 5-for-11 against the six-time All-Star, who has twice finished second for the Cy Young Award. He has two doubles and a homer against Cole.

“I think for me it is about looking for something up in the zone,” he said this afternoon. “I know he is good at throwing his slider down in the zone and he can get chases with that. For me, looking up in the zone is important and look for mistakes. Every time I see the ball down, you try to lay off. And that is how I have had some success against him.”

The Orioles are back home and in the division, beginning a three-game series tonight against the Yankees.

This is the first time in Orioles’ history that they’ve been in first place in July or later while facing a last-place Yankees team.

Gunnar Henderson has returned to the lineup tonight, leading off and playing shortstop. He missed Wednesday’s game with lower-back discomfort.

Colton Cowser is in center field. Ryan Mountcastle is the designated hitter. Ryan O’Hearn stays in the cleanup spot.

The Orioles’ last eight games have been decided by three runs or fewer, their longest streak of the season. It’s also the longest active streak in the majors, per STATS. The Brewers, Mariners and Phillies are next with six.