Last season, having C.C. Sabathia start a game right after a Yankees loss was as close to a sure thing as the team could hope for.

In 11 starts after a Yankees defeat in 2017, Sabathia went 9-0 with a 1.72 earned run average. In his 16 other starts, he was a different pitcher: 5-5, with an E.R.A. of 4.92.

On Friday night, Sabathia had a chance to perform his magic again, with the Yankees having lost, 5-2, to the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday. But in a game that seemed to go on forever — and ended on a grand slam home run in the top of the 14th inning by Pedro Alvarez that gave the Orioles a 7-3 victory — Sabathia didn’t stick around very long.

He was off the field after the fourth inning, and as the Yankees and Orioles kept playing, and playing, he underwent a magnetic resonance imaging exam for what the team described as a right hip injury.