NEW YORK -- The ball scooted past Eduardo Nunez's glove and into center field, and though Alex Rodriguez's advice to the young shortstop was to shake the error off, there was no mistaking that this one hurt.
Nunez flubbed a Matt Angle grounder to set up Mark Reynolds' go-ahead single in the 11th inning as the Orioles defeated the Yankees, 5-4, on a soggy afternoon at Yankee Stadium.
"It's not an easy ball. It's a short hop ... I never had the ball," said Nunez, who also committed a throwing error earlier in the game. "I feel bad for my teammates and the pitchers, who threw very well."
After a two-out intentional walk, Reynolds blooped a Hector Noesi (2-1) slider into shallow center field to score Angle and put Baltimore on top, pinning the Yankees shy of a sweep.
Nunez's 18th error of the season was just his second in the previous 30 games, and Rodriguez said there was no reason to hang heads, considering the sloppy conditions as the two clubs tried to avoid rescheduling games.
"Literally, you take today and put an X and just throw it away," Rodriguez said. "You don't worry about it one bit. I don't care if it was Ozzie Smith in his prime; today, he didn't have a chance. If I was Nuney, I wouldn't worry about it too much."
Reynolds' go-ahead hit came after Noesi hurled a scoreless 10th, but the Yankees were unable to score after the fourth inning. Jim Johnson recorded the final three outs to save a victory for Pedro Strop (1-1).
Yankees manager Joe Girardi assigned some blame to Nunez -- he and A-Rod also couldn't find a third-inning popup near the mound, an inning that saw Nolan Reimold hit a two-run homer off A.J. Burnett -- but the shortstop didn't shoulder the burden alone.
"Our defense has been pretty good. Today, it wasn't," Girardi said. "I don't know if it was the conditions, I don't know if it was fatigue, I don't know what it was. But today, it cost us the game."
Taking the field less than 12 hours after the final out of Tuesday's game, the Yankees got a start of mixed results from Burnett, who allowed runs in each of his first three innings but limited the Orioles to four runs while pitching into the seventh.
Angle singled, stole second and scored on a first-inning groundout, and in the second inning, Reimold walked, stole second and moved up on a wild pitch, before scoring on a Rodriguez error.
Reimold briefly gave the Orioles a two-run lead with his ninth home run of the year, a blast to left-center field with Nick Markakis aboard.
"I see it as, if I keep the ball in the park, we might win this ballgame," Burnett said.
A thinned-out crowd braving less-than-ideal conditions jeered Burnett after the blast, and he heard more boos in the fourth, as he was beaten to the first-base bag on Kyle Hudson's infield hit.
"A.J. just ran by the bag. That's the difference in the game," Girardi said.
Burnett explained, "I looked at the bag early and never picked it up again. I thought I was past the bag and wasn't going to try to make a play. I didn't realize how close I was."
He settled in after that, permitting seven hits with four walks and seven strikeouts -- three of them by Chris Davis, who struck out five times, and two by Reynolds, who fanned four times.
The fans chanted for Davis in his final at-bat, hoping to see him whiff a sixth time, but Reynolds ultimately got the last laugh.
"It was a tough day, but those at-bats are all behind me," Reynolds said. "I just went up there and tried to get a pitch over the plate I could handle and stay on top of it, because the ball wasn't really traveling today to hit a home run."
New York put up four runs in five innings off left-hander Zach Britton, logging five hits. Rodriguez had a two-run double off Britton in the first inning, as the lefty walked two and fanned two.
The Yankees evened the game in the fourth on Jesus Montero's booming two-run single off the right-field wall, chasing home Rodriguez and Andruw Jones after a walk and a double, respectively.
Threatening for more in the sixth, Montero reached on a two-base error charged to Robert Andino and pinch-hitter Mark Teixeira drew a walk. But Zach Phillips came on to strike out Robinson Cano swinging as a pinch-hitter, leaving two men aboard.
Clay Rapada worked around Teixeira's leadoff single off Kevin Gregg in the ninth to send the game to extra innings, where the Yankees just made one miscue too many.
"You don't worry about mistakes or errors," Rodriguez said. "You've got to go out and keep grinding, and expect that in a game like this there are going to be numerous mistakes. They made less than we did."
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