HOUSTON — The Orioles left New York on Thursday riding their highest wins of the season.
Baltimore won back-to-back series against the Phillies and the Yankees, at the time the two best teams in baseball, taking four of six games. On Thursday, they scored a season-high 17 runs as they took two of three from their division rivals.
They arrived in Houston early Friday. They showed signs of running out of steam throughout the night, giving up a season-high number of runs, nine of which came in the sixth inning of their 14-11 loss. But the Orioles, even when they were down by 11, continued to fight. They scored seven runs in the eighth to lose by only three, perhaps giving them a bit of a positive taste and some offensive momentum heading into Saturday afternoon’s game.
“It shows you what we are capable of offensively,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “Guys feel like they are never out of the game, just a little too many runs to come back from. That was a heck of a fight.”
The night started just fine for the Orioles. They made early contact against Astros starter Jake Bloss, who was making his MLB debut, and scored two runs in the third on RBIs from Ryan O’Hearn and Anthony Santander. Bloss exited in the fourth with an injury.
Grayson Rodriguez gave up just two runs in the first and second, but it was the fifth when things really started to unravel as Jake Meyers hit a three-run homer. Rodriguez sent Meyers a curveball — a pitch he said was working well for him at that point in the game — but he missed on the location.
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“I mean really just that one pitch, a three-run homer with two outs, I can’t let that happen,” Rodriguez said. “A kind of crazy game, they had a good approach being aggressive. You have to tip your cap to them. They were up there ready to swing the bat.”
In the sixth, the Orioles came apart. Mauricio Dubón walked to open the inning, and Joey Loperfido hit a grounder that bounced off first baseman Ryan Mountcastle’s glove and into right field, resulting in a double and allowing Dubón to score.
Then the onslaught came.
Jacob Webb replaced Rodriguez, immediately giving up a walk and a double to bring Rodriguez’s final line to seven earned runs, a season high. Then Webb gave up four earned runs of his own and Dillion Tate three as the Astros scored nine runs in the sixth.
“The sixth inning just went terribly for us,” Hyde said. “We didn’t get guys out. .... Webby has been unbelievable for us on the mound, and it just wasn’t his night. Tate had a hard time putting out the fire.”
The pitching staff that has held up despite losing three to season-ending injuries unraveled a bit. Webb was one of their freshest arms, having pitched only once in the Yankees series, but he’s still pitched the second most on the team this season. Tate was used in two games in New York, even getting the save in one as he helped the Orioles win in extra innings.
The Orioles used Nick Vespi for the seventh and eighth innings. He has two options left and would be an obvious candidate to send down to bring up a needed fresh arm. However, the Orioles don’t have many options to pull from, and they do have the added benefit of having ace Corbin Burnes on the mound Saturday. Jonathan Heasley and Bruce Zimmermann are on the injured list, and Matt Krook is the only other left-handed reliever on their 40-man roster.
Baltimore did find energy again late, Gunnar Henderson hitting homers in the seventh and eighth and the Orioles adding seven total in the eighth. That still wasn’t enough, though, to close the deficit that their pitching staff had created.
“We always stay in the game,” Santander, who hit his 20th home run in the eighth, said. “We never give up. Every hitter goes out there to compete and make some runs, and that’s what we did tonight.”
