Orioles score three runs in sixth and use Tate to close out 3-2 win (updated)

Kyle Stowers drifted back to the right field fence tonight, leaped for Xander Bogaerts’ fly ball and held up his glove after his feet again touched dirt. It was empty.

The Orioles couldn’t afford to experience that feeling hours later as they filed into the clubhouse.

A team that prides itself on its resiliency, confidence and closeness needed to tap into the supply. The games are going away. The Orioles are fighting to stick around.

Rookie Brayan Bello carried a shutout into the sixth inning before the Orioles rallied for three runs to take the lead, which they protected with a backup closer in a 3-2 victory over the Red Sox before an announced crowd of 16,451 at Camden Yards.

Dillon Tate inherited a runner from Bryan Baker with two outs in the eighth and overran Kiké Hernández’s slow roller for an error. He struck out pinch-hitter Reese McGuire, returned for the ninth and recorded his fourth save after Alex Verdugo reached with one out on an infield hit.

O's game blog: The weekend series with Boston begins

The Orioles have 25 games left in the 2022 regular season and three left on this current homestand. After Thursday’s off-day, they host Boston for a weekend series beginning tonight at Oriole Park.

The Orioles (72-65) lost three of four games to Toronto, scoring just eight runs in the three losses in that series. They have lost four of five games overall and now are 4 1/2 games back of Toronto for the final American League wild card berth. They are five back of Seattle for the second wild card spot and six games behind Tampa Bay for the No. 1 wild card spot.

Righty Alek Manoah held the Orioles to three hits over eight innings as Toronto won 4-1 Wednesday night. The Birds went just 3-for-30 in that game and were 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position. They saw 22 of their last 23 batters retired in the game after they had taken a 1-0 lead in the first on a Ryan Mountcastle RBI double.

Mountcastle went 4-for-16 with two doubles and five RBIs in the series against Toronto. In eight games this month, he is batting .290 with a .979 OPS to go with three homers and 11 RBIs.

Catcher Adley Rutschman went 7-for-16 in the series with three doubles, a homer, four runs and four RBIs. He is batting .417 (10-for-24) during a six-game hitting streak with three doubles, two homers and six RBIs.

Orioles and Red Sox lineups

The Orioles resume their homestand tonight with Gunnar Henderson starting at shortstop against the Red Sox, Austin Hays batting eighth and playing left field, and Kyle Stowers batting ninth and starting in right.

Ramón Urías is the third baseman and batting sixth behind Henderson.

Jorge Mateo is on the bench.

Catcher Adley Rutschman is 10-for-24 during a six-game hitting streak, with three doubles, two home runs, six RBIs, three walks and five runs scored. His 29 doubles this year lead major league rookies and are tied for second-most among Orioles catchers in club history with Matt Wieters in 2013 and Ramón Hernández in 2006.

His 29 doubles also are tied with Hall of Famers Eddie Murray (1977) and Cal Ripken Jr. (1982) for most by an Orioles rookie in franchise history.

O's head to Little League Classic still searching for consistent offense

If you want to be surprised by a stat, how about this one: In August, the Orioles rank second in the American League in runs scored. That sure seems unlikely but they have scored 90 runs in 18 games, going 11-7 in the month.

But recent losses sure do stand out and many of them came because the offense didn't produce big numbers. Sure there was a 15-run breakout on Friday but it didn't carry into Saturday when Boston's Michael Wacha held the Orioles scoreless over 5 2/3 and the Red Sox evened this series with a 4-3 win.

"We had a tough time getting a rally going against (Wacha)," said manager Brandon Hyde after the game. "Good to see us make a run late like usual but just came up a run short today."

The Orioles have scored just 13 runs in their past seven losses, scoring one, three, two, one, one, two and three runs. 

They have lost three of four games, going without a homer in the three losses but hitting five in the one win.

Rally comes up short in 4-3 loss to Red Sox (updated)

Unlike airline points, runs don’t carry over.

If they did, the Orioles could’ve used a few Saturday. After exploding for 15 runs in a series opening win Friday, the O’s bats went quiet in a 4-3 loss to the Red Sox in front of 34,939 on Saturday.

As has too often been the case recently, the offense waited too long to get going, failing to score off of Michael Wacha in the starter’s 5 ⅔ innings of work for Boston. A seventh-inning rally netted the Orioles just two runs, not enough to overcome what was then a 3-0 deficit.

"We had a tough time getting a rally going against (Wacha)," said manager Brandon Hyde after the game. "Good to see us make a run late like usual but just came up a run short today."

Baserunners were hard to come by for the Orioles, who collected just one walk and went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position.

O's game blog: Looking for two in a row over Boston

After their biggest offensive night of the season, scoring their most runs since they got 18 on June 6, 2021 versus Cleveland, the Orioles look for a second win over Boston today at Camden Yards. 

If they get it, they will be 3-1 this year in series against the Red Sox. The O's took two of three at home in late April, went 3-2 at Boston in late May and were 0-1 Aug. 11 at Boston (that one game does count as a series).

The Orioles (62-57) begin play today 1.5 games back of Tampa Bay for the third AL wild card spot with Minnesota just 1/2 behind the Rays. 

The Orioles are now 34-22 at home and have won 16 of their last 21 games at Oriole Park. 

On the mound today for the Orioles will be right-hander Kyle Bradish (1-4, 6.38 ERA), who gave up six hits and three runs over 4 2/3 innings on Monday versus Toronto. In four starts since coming off the injured list, he has an ERA of 4.05, allowing nine earned runs over 20 innings. In that span, he has given up a .253 batting average and .741 OPS.

Orioles lineup vs. Red Sox

The Orioles will try to clinch their series against the Red Sox today after moving within 1 ½ games of the last wild card spot.

They improved last night to 6-4 against the Red Sox after going 6-13 in 2021.

Michael Wacha’s reverse splits have produced a right-handed heavy lineup for the Orioles.

Austin Hays is leading off and playing left field, and Ryan McKenna is in center. Cedric Mullins is on the bench.

Also missing from the lineup are Rougned Odor and rookie Kyle Stowers. Tyler Nevin is playing third base, with Ramón Urías moving to second.  

Orioles rally to tie but fall behind again in 4-3 loss (updated)

BOSTON – The division standings plastered on the lower left portion of the Green Monster weren’t updated when the Orioles arrived at the ballpark this afternoon or during the early rounds of the Red Sox’s batting practice session.

It wasn’t until later that the Orioles were shown to be tied with the Rays for third place rather than trailing by a half-game. Which also meant they were tied for the last wild card spot.

Important distinctions for the Orioles, even if the famed wall isn’t official.

The holdovers from past seasons are accustomed to the team being listed at the bottom, but the Red Sox have become tenants of the cellar.

There’s a new order in the East. Unfortunately for the Orioles, they learned that the Red Sox still have some of their old fight.

O's game blog: O's make it to Fenway Park for one-night only appearance

The Orioles will be in three cities in three days and their tour is on day two today. They got rained out at home last night in the scheduled third game of their series with Toronto. Their chance at their first sweep of the Blue Jays since Aug. 27-29, 2018 was washed away by the raindrops.

Tonight the Orioles play one game versus the Red Sox in Boston. Friday they open a series in St. Petersburg, Fla. against the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Orioles have made up some serious ground on several teams since the All-Star break when they were 46-46. They have gone 12-6 since to get to 58-52 and the Orioles are now tied with Tampa Bay for the third AL wild card spot. They trail Toronto by two games for the first spot and Seattle by 1.5 games for the second. The Rays, Jays and Mariners are all off tonight. 

At the break, the O’s record was tied for ninth-best in the American League. Now they are tied for the fifth-best AL record. At the All-Star game, they were five games behind Tampa Bay, which was then leading for WC-1, 4.5 behind Seattle for WC-2 and 3.5 games back of Toronto for WC-3. Not only that but both Boston (48-45) and Cleveland (46-44) were ahead of them in the standings for those spots.

Tonight, they play the one game at Fenway Park before moving onto a big weekend series against the Rays. The Orioles could get to seven games over .500 with a win and that would be their first time seven games over since May 22, 2017.

Orioles and Red Sox lineups

BOSTON - The Orioles landed in Boston early this morning tied with the Rays for third place in the American League East and for the last wild card spot. They’re only two games behind the Blue Jays for the top spot.

They will try to improve on a 25-31 road record with one game in Boston, three in St. Petersburg, Fla. and three in Toronto.

A win tonight puts the Orioles seven games above .500 for the first time since May 22, 2017.

Dean Kremer is making the start after last night’s rainout. Austin Voth was supposed to face the Red Sox.

Kremer has made two career starts against Boston and allowed 10 runs and 12 hits in 7 2/3 innings. His only appearance at Fenway Park in 2020 resulted in seven runs and seven hits in 2 2/3 innings.

Austin Hays on Alex Cora's comments and more

The Orioles' level of play has improved, no doubt, over the team that lost 110 games in 2021. That club won just 20 of 76 American League East division games (.263) last year and the current Orioles are 11-16 (.407) in the division.

They just completed a two-week run of games versus the AL East and went 7-8 against the Yankees, Rays, Yankees again and Red Sox. This run started with three straight losses at home to the Yankees and ended with a 7-5 stretch.

The Orioles have gone 4-9 versus the Yankees and 7-7 combined against the Rays and Red Sox, a year after going a combined 7-31 against those two clubs.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora threw the Orioles some props with reporters after Baltimore hammered his team 10-0 last night to win that series, three victories to two.

“Stuff-wise, they’re (pitching) really good,” Cora told reporters Monday night. “You see it. Everybody sees it. We saw it early in the season. … I'm not surprised, because that's how it started in Houston. It started with pitching.”

Orioles come out swinging early and Wells is untouchable in 10-0 win (updated)

BOSTON – The Orioles got loud in the first inning tonight against a soft-tossing left-hander who gave up nothing against them in an earlier game.

Rich Hill was down a couple runs just three batters into his start. The outs also made noise. There was no hangover for the Orioles after the previous day’s lopsided defeat.

Hangovers and loud noises don’t mix anyway.

Ryan Mountcastle hopped out of the batter’s box after crushing a full-count curveball, hoping to land on the other side of his slump. Ramón Urías got into the act in the third with a two-run shot to dead center field measured at 422 feet.

Tyler Wells grabbed lots of attention by shutting out the Red Sox over six innings, the longest scoreless outing of his career, Mountcastle had four hits, and the Orioles defeated the Red Sox 10-0 at Fenway Park.

O's game blog: The road trip finale at Boston

Tyler Wells clapping gray

The Orioles wrap up a two-city, eight-game road trip tonight at Boston, playing the fifth and final game of their series at Fenway Park. The winner of tonight’s game wins the series, which is tied at two wins each.

O’s pitching allowed five doubles and five homers Sunday as the Red Sox rolled to a 12-2 win – the Orioles' most lopsided loss of the season. Boston led 7-1 after five innings and then added five runs and four hits in the last of the eighth.

Lefty Bruce Zimmermann allowed six runs over four innings to fall to 2-3 with a 4.53 ERA. He has allowed nine homers his past two starts and 12 in the last four after giving up just one home run over his first six starts of 2022.

O’s starting pitchers began this year with an ERA of 2.97 through their first 15 games. But the rotation ERA is 6.99 and has produced just three quality starts over the past 19 games since May 11.

Right-hander Tyler Wells (1-4, 4.30 ERA) gets tonight’s start. For the year, Wells has thrown 37 2/3 innings, allowing 38 hits with six walks to 25 strikeouts. He has recorded a 1.168 WHIP with a 1.4 walk rate and 6.0 strikeout rate.

Notes on Orioles rotation, Kremer and more

BOSTON – The Orioles are waiting until Tuesday morning to announce their starter for the series opener against the Mariners at Camden Yards. Kyle Bradish starts Wednesday, followed by Jordan Lyles on Thursday in his 300th career game.

A pitcher could come up from Triple-A Norfolk or manager Brandon Hyde goes with another bullpen game to piece together nine innings.

The Tides are off tonight and list DL Hall as Tuesday’s starter.

Grayson Rodriguez isn't going to be promoted to work on short rest.

Left-hander Zac Lowther would be on normal rest if the Orioles summoned him, he’s on the 40-man roster and he held Gwinnett to two runs over five innings in his last appearance. However, he’s sporting a 6.67 ERA and 1.652 WHIP in 10 games and is averaging almost four walks per nine innings.

Orioles lineup vs. Red Sox

BOSTON – The Orioles still can claim the five-game series against the Red Sox with a victory tonight that concludes their homestand.

The teams have split the first four games, with the Red Sox cruising yesterday to a 12-2 win.

“We just need to let this one go,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “We’ve been playing good baseball, we’ve played competitively this entire trip.”

Cedric Mullins begins tonight’s game on the bench, with Ryan McKenna in center field.

Austin Hays is leading off and playing right field. Anthony Santander is in left field and batting cleanup.

Zimmermann surrenders five home runs in lopsided loss (updated)

BOSTON – Bruce Zimmermann spun on the mound again, the sound of the contact telling him where the ball was going to land. He watched anyway. And then he needed to figure out quickly how to eliminate the mistakes and hope the Orioles had more rallies inside of them.

He couldn’t, and they didn’t.

Bobby Dalbec hit a two-run homer in the second inning, and Franchy Cordero drove a slider 448 feet into the center field bleachers before Zimmermann recorded the last out. And a bump turned into a mountain.

Rafael Devers led off the third with a 434-foot shot to right-center, the ball leaving his bat at 110.7 mph, Christian Arroyo and Kiké Hernandez cleared the Green Monster in the fourth, and the Red Sox rolled past the Orioles 12-2 at sun-splashed Fenway Park.

Zimmermann surrendered one home run in his first six starts, but opponents have hit nine in his last two and 12 in his last four.

O's game blog: Looking for another win at Fenway Park

The Orioles (20-28) and Red Sox (22-25) split a doubleheader on Saturday with Boston winning the opener 5-3 before the Baltimore bullpen allowed one unearned run and no walks over 5 1/3 innings in the nightcap as they won 4-2.

The O’s bullpen has allowed four earned runs over 16 1/3 innings this series for an ERA of 2.20. The bullpen ERA for the year is down to 3.00, which now ranks second in the major leagues behind only the Astros at 2.53. The Orioles bullpen has pitched to a 2.61 ERA in 27 May games, the second-best mark in the majors this month, behind only the Astros bullpen with a 1.94 ERA in 26 games.

O’s pitchers allowed seven runs in the doubleheader to a Red Sox team that was averaging 7.5 runs per game over the previous 16 games with 120 runs scored in that span.  

All four O’s runs were scored in the fourth inning of Game 2 on a Ramón Urías RBI single and Rougner Odor’s three-run homer. Odor has hit safely in 12 of his last 13 games since May 16, slashing .306/.320/.612 (15-for-49) with four doubles, one triple, three home runs, seven runs scored and 13 RBIs. During this span, he ranks among American League leaders in RBIs (third), total bases (eighth, 30), and slugging percentage (10th). Odor has raised his slugging percentage from .311 entering play on May 16 to .417 entering play today. He produced a career-long 11-game hitting streak from May 16-27, the longest by an O’s batter this season.

On the mound today for Baltimore will be lefty Bruce Zimmermann (2-2, 3.78 ERA) making his 10th start. The Orioles are 5-4 when he takes the ball this year. He has recorded a 1.217 WHIP allowing 9.1 hits per nine and 1.5 homers with a 1.9 walk rate and 7.4 strikeout rate.

Orioles lineup vs. Red Sox

BOSTON – Left-hander Bruce Zimmermann is on the mound today as the Orioles try to guarantee a series win at Fenway Park.

The Orioles have won two of the first three games. The series concludes Monday night.

Zimmermann has a 3.78 ERA and 1.217 WHIP in nine starts. He surrendered one home run in his first six, but has allowed seven in his last three games.

Adley Rutschman is the designated hitter after catching last night. He’s 5-for-28 (.179) with a triple in seven games.

Trey Mancini is in left field and Austin Hays is on the bench.

O's game blog: Kyle Bradish faces Red Sox in series opener

As the Orioles' road trip continues at Boston tonight, they face a Red Sox team playing much better than the last time these two teams faced. On April 29 at Baltimore, the clubs began a three-game series and the Red Sox had lost seven of nine at the start of the series. The Orioles won the last two games that weekend to take two of three.

But now, Boston is red-hot and scoring a lot of runs. The Red Sox (21-23) beat the White Sox 16-7 last night, scoring 16 runs for the second time in three games. Boston has won seven of its last eight games and is 10-3 in its past 13 games. The Red Sox have scored 100 runs (7.7 per game) in those 13 games. They have scored 112 runs (7.5 per game) their past 15 games, going 11-4.

Boston has won four series in a row, going 2-1 at Texas, 2-1 versus Houston, 4-0 versus Seattle and 2-1 against Chicago. The Red Sox are 10-10 at home but are 6-1 in the last seven games at Fenway Park.

Boston’s Trevor Story had two hits, including a three-run homer on Thursday night, as he continues his recent torrid hitting. Hitting that has seen him produce seven homers and 21 RBIs his past seven games and eight homers in his last 10. He has driven in 32 runs this month.

O’s right-hander Kyle Bradish (1-3, 5.74 ERA) will try to slow down this hot club tonight. He made his major league debut in that April 29 game against Boston and pitched well. Over six innings, he gave up five hits and three runs (two earned) with one walk and two strikeouts on 81 pitches. In his third start, Bradish would allow two runs over seven innings with 11 strikeouts at St. Louis.

Jones undergoes elbow surgery (plus lineup and notes)

BOSTON – Infielder Jahmai Jones underwent Tommy John surgery today on his right elbow and is done playing for the 2022 season.

Jones, 24, was batting .212/.339/.343 with five doubles, one triple, two home runs and seven RBIs in 27 games with Triple-A Norfolk.

The Orioles acquired Jones from the Angels on Feb. 2, 2021 for starter Alex Cobb. He returned to the majors on Aug. 24, appeared in 26 games and went 10-for-67 (.149).

Dr. Timothy Kremcheck performed the surgery in Cincinnati. 

The Orioles begin a five-game series tonight at Fenway Park with Kyle Bradish facing the team that provided the opposition for his major league debut.