SEATTLE — Brandon Hyde wanted the matchup. He paired the left-handed Keegan Akin with the left-handed J.P. Crawford in the seventh inning of a tie game, hoping Akin could strand all three runners he inherited from Bryan Baker.
He couldn’t. Akin continued a troublesome trend this season when Crawford got the better of Akin in the left-on-left matchup. Crawford lashed a bases-clearing double to put Seattle ahead, and the next batter, Mitch Garver, connected on Akin’s high fastball and sent it sailing 402 feet.
In a tight game, two middle-relief pitchers aren’t the sort of high-leverage arms that inspire lock-down confidence. But there were few options in the bullpen, particularly after two close wins Tuesday and Wednesday required Baltimore to use its top arms. So in came Baker and Akin, who slipped up and allowed five runs with two outs in the seventh.
The breakthrough from Seattle — a lineup that hadn’t even scored five runs in a game for over a week — led the Mariners to a 7-3 victory against the Orioles at T-Mobile Park on Thursday.
“A really poorly pitched seventh there,” Hyde said. “Almost got out of it. But Akin falls behind 3-0 and has to come in [with a fastball to Crawford]. Just got to do a better job in that kind of situation.”
Baltimore still left with two wins in three games, but it wasted a 14th quality start from right-hander Corbin Burnes.
The Orioles jumped on right-hander Bryce Miller early, with Gunnar Henderson’s opposite-field two-run homer providing a burst of offense in the third. Henderson was a triple away from the cycle, breaking out of a mini-slump that included nine strikeouts in his previous three games.
“I didn’t really know where that came from, but yeah, that’s baseball, it’s going to happen,” Henderson said. “Just try to limit it as much as I could. I feel like I was putting in some good work the past couple days just trying to figure it out and made some steps in the right direction today.”
The Orioles couldn’t add on over the next four frames, and it allowed Seattle to come back. Baltimore hit 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded seven base runners.
After retiring 12 straight batters following a leadoff single, Burnes turned and watched in the fifth inning as Julio Rodríguez throttled a cutter on the inside edge of the plate deep to left-center field. It was Rodríguez’s first home run since June 15, and it brought a struggling Mariners lineup within one run.
Seattle leveled the score later that inning, when Burnes found himself in a rare jam. He allowed two singles — although one of them should’ve been charged as an error on second baseman Jorge Mateo — and a walk to load the bases with no outs. But Burnes managed just about the best possible outcome when he forced Ryan Bliss to bounce into a double play. A run came home, but Burnes avoided a larger inning.
In his first appearance since his wife, Brooke, gave birth to twins, Burnes completed another quality start by allowing two runs on four hits in six innings.
“We made some big pitches when we needed to,” Burnes said. “One mistake there to Julio, just a poor cutter, but after that, to get out of it with only one run given up, big double play there, was big. Threw more pitches than I wanted to but for the most part was pretty pleased with it. Didn’t spin the ball the way I wanted to, but that can maybe be attributed to the layoff.”
But with the game in the bullpen’s hands, it all went wrong. Baker loaded the bases with a double and two walks, and Akin entered with two outs. The tie game then broke open.
That’s a situation in which Hyde would have likely turned to Danny Coulombe, had the left-hander not undergone elbow surgery to remove bone chips. Another southpaw option, Cionel Pérez, pitched two days in a row and was unavailable Thursday.
Instead, Hyde turned to Akin, and the outcome might have been different if Akin didn’t throw three straight balls to begin his appearance. He then threw two fastballs in the middle of the zone, and Crawford hammered the second.
“You’ve got to go right at the guy and try to hope your defense can work and the ball finds a glove,” catcher James McCann said. “Unfortunately, it found a gap, and it was a big one.”
Jordan Westburg added a solo homer in the eighth, but Baltimore’s lineup didn’t do much else to mount a late comeback.
The Orioles will take a series win, because it keeps them on a path toward an American League East championship. The New York Yankees lost Thursday, which kept Baltimore’s two-game lead in the division intact.
But with a bullpen lapse in the seventh, there will be more eyes on the upcoming trade deadline to bolster Baltimore’s division chances.
“For the most part, they’ve done phenomenal out there,” Burnes said. “Hiccups every now and then, but what do you expect? Everyone’s human and everyone has those bad days. They’ve done great and they’ll continue to do great.”
