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The Orioles looked like a team that finally had reached its limit, that was done being pushed around. They were no-hit for seven innings Saturday in New York and for six tonight on their home turf. And then they exploded, launching three consecutive home runs to take the lead.
But these aren’t the comeback Orioles of previous seasons, when they’d routinely close the deal. That’s why a club in a state of desperation to build a winning streak that might get it into the Wild Card chase can’t stop spinning its wheels.
Félix Bautista put a runner on second base with no outs in the top of the ninth and escaped the jam, but Evan Carter scored on Sam Haggerty’s fielder’s choice grounder against Seranthony Domínguez in the 10th, and the Orioles lost to the Rangers 6-5 before an announced crowd of 16,909 at Camden Yards.
Cedric Mullins laid down a sacrifice bunt against Robert Garcia that moved automatic runner Luis Vázquez to third base. Dylan Carlson struck out and Jackson Holliday flied out.
The outcome moved the Orioles 11 games below .500 again at 34-45. They can claim the series on Wednesday but they’re 3-9 in rubber games.
"It’s frustrating, for sure," said Ryan O'Hearn, who slugged his 11th homer. "The big inning, we score five runs and it feels like we’re going to steal one there and it’s going to be a great win for us. And then, unfortunately, you guys saw what happened. Tough one to lose, for sure.
"We’re going to play every out and every inning until the end of the game. I’ve said it a million times, I like our chances with our offense, I think we’ve got a great offense. Yeah, very frustrating. That felt good to get that momentum swing, big inning in the (seventh) there, it felt like, ‘All right, here we go, we’re going to steal this one.’ But we didn’t."
Bautista has a scoreless streak dating back to May 30. Domínguez hasn’t permitted an earned run since May 24 in Boston. Carter, the automatic runner tonight, was ruled safe upon review after Holliday fielded Haggerty’s grounder and threw home. The inning also included a couple of wild pitches.
“It’s a little bit up and down," said interim manager Tony Mansolino. "We’ve seen him really good. We’ve had to rely on these guys so heavily here over the 16-game stretch. I think you start to see little leaks here and there with command and things like that. I don’t think that’s unusual, by any means, with how much these guys have thrown.
"The bottom line is they didn’t hit anything hard off him, got three punchouts, contact play at the plate, slow-hit ball, Carter, who can really run, makes a great slide at the plate, goes to review, they overturn it. Few more strikes, probably be a little bit cleaner inning, but he did great.”
The Orioles had a short bench, which led to Vázquez batting with two outs in the ninth after entering at third base and Ramón Urías moving to first. Jordan Westburg remained day-to-day with a sprained left finger. Mansolino said Colton Cowser was available but he didn't play.
"Every time we got him up and we were gonna pinch-hit, they had a lefty kind of sitting there for him, so we were making the choice of the righty that was in the game or Cowser against the left-handed pitcher that they had up both times where it kind of came to the spot where we would use him," Mansolino said. "So we just felt like the matchup was probably a little bit better as it was.”
Rangers reliever Chris Martin faced three batters in the seventh and they strung together three home runs. Gary Sánchez started it with a three-run shot, Urías tied the game and future All-Star O’Hearn gave them a 5-4 lead.
The last back-to-back-to back home runs for the Orioles came from Jonathan Schoop, Chris Davis and Trey Mancini on Aug. 6, 2017 against the Tigers.
The Orioles came out sluggish with the bats. Clarke Schmidt no-hit them for seven innings Saturday and left-hander Jacob Latz did it tonight before Ramón Laureano’s leadoff single in the seventh. Gunnar Henderson lined out at 104.7 mph to end the fourth. The only baserunners before Laureano poked a 2-2 changeup into center field came on walks to Holliday leading off the fourth and Sánchez leading off the fifth. Latz responded with three strikeouts in a row to continue his pursuit of history.
Latz was viewed as an opener, but he logged a career-high six-plus innings. His previous best of 5 2/3 came in his last appearance in bulk relief. Tonight marked only his third start in 67 games.
"I do think that we swung the bat a little bit better than, probably, what the scoreboard indicated earlier in the game," said Mansolino, whose team got all four hits in the same inning. "There’s some hard-hit balls, especially by our left-handed hitters. I thought we got ourselves into trouble a little bit with our right-handed hitters kind of chasing out of the zone. If you kind of go back and look at the game, we probably should have had four or five walks from our right-handed guys. Credit to the starting pitcher. It’s a good fastball with the changeup. Not a whole lot middle. But I think if we keep him on the plate better, it’s a little better night for us.”
Said O'Hearn: "He started working that changeup into lefties. I can speak for lefties. If you look at his report, it’s fastball/slider and it’s like 2 or 3 percent changeup, and then he started breaking that thing out and I think, personally, messed up my game plan a little bit. You look for that slider to start inner lane right there or black in, and then, hopefully, if a ball leaks back over, then that’s when it’s a good pitch to hit. But he’s starting the changeup there and then it was kind of fading and then swing and miss. He’s got a good fastball. Yeah, he was good tonight."
Henderson walked in the seventh to put two runners on base with no outs and bring Martin into the game. Sánchez launched an 0-2 cutter to left field to reduce the lead to 4-3. Urías reached the edge of the flag court in right on another cutter and mimicked the umpire’s home run signal as he rounded first base. And O’Hearn carried a fastball 406 feet to center field as the crowd erupted again.
Charlie Morton didn’t absorb heavy punishment in the fourth inning tonight. His treatment was more like being elbowed on a crowded light rail. But it hurt, nonetheless.
A walk, two groundball singles, fielder’s choice with an off-target throw to the plate and fly ball gave the Rangers a three-run lead. The Orioles still didn’t have a baserunner. They didn’t appear to have a way to make up ground. Just like in the standings.
Morton was drained of 43 pitches in the fourth and the Orioles’ offense ran on empty until Sánchez’s three-run homer.
"I guess I've been doing it long enough that it just comes with the territory," Morton said. "I just, maybe if I make a couple better pitches, they don't hit it as hard or what. I don't know. But yeah, that's the game of fate you play when you get a ground ball. You never know. But I'm not necessarily trying to get ground balls there, maybe with a guy on first. Just that fourth inning, and I think I threw, like, 40-something pitches too. So, that was frustrating, because I thought I definitely had a chance there to work into the sixth and limit runs, and they did a good job putting the ball in play and there were a couple really, really deep counts and ran my pitch count up a lot.”
The game-time temperature was 100 degrees again. The Orioles ditched the live hot dog races this week in favor of the old video board contests. No one wants to see relish pass out near the finish line.
There might be a hot dog mascot union that prohibits it.
In the top of the fourth, only the free pass to Corey Seager can be hung on Morton. Marcus Semien’s bouncer sneaked through the left side and Seager scored on Carter’s ball that got through the right at 77.7 mph. Henderson made a wide throw to the plate after fielding Josh Jung’s grounder, and Alejandro Osuna followed with a sacrifice fly.
Laureano had a shot at Seager, but his throw was a bit up the first base line and Sánchez couldn’t hold onto it. Carter advanced to second base and Laureano was charged with an error.
“I felt like we had one the other day, too," Mansolino said. "They’re close. They’re good slides. I’ll credit the baserunners at third base. But one of these days we’ve got to get one of those, no doubt.”
The Orioles caught a break on Kyle Higashioka’s two-out double. The ball hopped the left field wall, forcing Jung back to third base.
Morton helped his own cause in the second by picking off Jung after a two-out single, but he had traffic throughout his outing until coming back out for the fifth and retiring the side in order on nine pitches to ease a little of the bullpen workload.
The 100 pitches tied Morton’s season high.
Keegan Akin inherited a bases-loaded, two-out mess for Andrew Kittredge in the sixth and retired Josh Smith on a ground ball, but he allowed a run in the seventh. Akin’s usage eliminated him from opener consideration Wednesday and gives rookie Brandon Young the start.
Pinch-hitter Jonah Heim tied the game 5-5 in the eighth with a sacrifice fly off Gregory Soto after Haggerty walked and stole two bases.
"I thought Soto threw the ball good, just didn’t hold the runner," Mansolino said. "One walk, two flyouts and a punch out. We’ve just got to keep the guy at first base a little bit better. You get that momentum there, you feel really good about it. You got Bautista sitting out there in the ninth. We had Bake (Bryan Baker) on the shelf there. We weren’t going to use Bake with how much we used him on this last road trip. With the choice we made, we felt really good about it.”
"It’s just baseball, right?" Morton said. "It’s just part of it. Momentum swings happen. They grinded back and scratch and claw, and yeah, that’s a tough one. I think this group has really started to gain some footing with games like that. I think they will do that. They’ll punch back, they’ll fight back, and you know, to get where we want to get to, we’re going to have to do that. We’re going to have to go out and bang with somebody. We’re going to have to go out and out-grind somebody.
"It doesn’t make it any easier, but it was a really ... I don’t know. It just felt like even the guys that came out of the bullpen, they grinded it out. It just felt like we couldn’t get things to go our way. It took the guys putting some really good swings on the ball and knocking it out of the park, but that was just kind of one of those nights where man, the grind wasn’t enough."
* Triple-A Norfolk’s Cameron Weston held Gwinnett to an unearned run and one hit in six innings. He walked one and struck out seven.
Tyler O’Neill went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts at Double-A Chesapeake.
