A day’s worth of Orioles baseball, fat with gusto and as full of life as they’ve been all season, can unravel quickly.
Thus was the case in the waning innings of Baltimore’s nail-biting 7-6 extra-innings loss to the visiting Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon.
Gregory Soto relieved Seranthony Domínguez in the eighth inning, inheriting a three-run lead. It was trimmed to 6-4 by the time Yennier Cano replaced him. Cano could all but drop his head as he stepped off the mound after a Bo Bichette RBI single evened the score.
The Blue Jays’ eventual game-winning run was an anticlimactic soft ground ball toward third base courtesy of Myles Straw that scored Andrés Giménez in the 10th inning. Jeff Hoffman, whom the Orioles agreed to sign this offseason before a failed physical caused the deal to fall through, closed the game by earning a two-inning save. After recording the final out, he blew a kiss toward Baltimore’s dugout.
With the loss, the Orioles (6-9) have still yet to win any of their five series this season.
So much of the energy Baltimore generated in Saturday night’s win rolled right into Sunday’s matinee. This loss to their American League East rivals was littered with moments of a team reinvigorated. A group that days ago was hearing its manager talk openly about needing to remind his players that they’re capable of winning these back-against-the-wall games.
They looked like it for seven full innings. They just couldn’t finish the job.
When Gunnar Henderson slid head-first through home plate, avoiding the tag for an early go-ahead run, he leapt to his feet and whacked Ryan O’Hearn’s hand hard enough that O’Hearn had to shake it off before his own at-bat.
When Toronto’s Ernie Clement poked the ball to third base in the fourth, Giménez wound up in a pickle between third and home plate. Jordan Westburg made a diving effort tag to prevent the tying run, and Baltimore ended the inning a batter later.
When the Blue Jays positioned themselves to flip the game on its head, getting two runners in scoring position with two outs in the fifth, the Orioles called on right-handed reliever Bryan Baker. They needed a way of that jam.
With three thundering fastballs all painting the high and inside corner of the strike zone, he sent George Springer packing, keeping a firm grip on a 4-2 Orioles lead. Baker stepped off the mound and screamed, punching the palm of his bright turquoise glove over and over.
Those moments kept stacking. The balloon swelled for seven innings. It popped completely on that dribbler in the 10th.
Instant analysis
It’s been a week since an Orioles pitcher recorded a quality start. That was Zach Eflin in a 5-1 win at Arizona. Elfin’s responsible for three of Baltimore’s four quality starts through 15 games, tied for the 17th most of any team in MLB. Povich’s was a retroactive quality start because of an overturned call in Kansas City that flipped a Bobby Witt Jr. triple to a Jorge Mateo error. Three quality starts would rank bottom-10 in baseball. Through three turns, the rotation holds a 5.30 ERA — 29th in the league.
Now that Baltimore is starting to remind folks its offense is capable of hitting with some juice, it’ll need its beleaguered pitching rotation, which is without several key starters, including Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez, to come closer to matching that energy.
On deck
The Orioles have Monday off, the second in four days because of Friday’s postponement. After a lively hitting performance Saturday, the Blue Jays got the best of Baltimore in an extra-innings cage fight, splitting the series. Baltimore begins a four-game series Tuesday with the Cleveland Guardians in town. Charlie Morton will take the ball for the Orioles opposite lefty Logan Allen. Then, for Baltimore, it’s Dean Kremer on Wednesday and Tomoyuki Sugano on Thursday.
This article will be updated. Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn.
Guardians at Orioles
Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
TV: MASN2
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
