Grayson Rodriguez was good and the offense took it to the Rays.
This was a fun one! The Orioles won their third straight game against the Rays today with some impressive pitching and big offense. Grayson Rodriguez had a great run on the mound and the bullpen was very good. The team racked up 13 hits including two doubles, three triples, and two home runs. The biggest blow was from Adley Rutschman, whose grand slam broke the game open in the 8th inning. The end result was a 9-2 win against their division rivals.
Grayson Rodriguez’s pitching line tonight doesn’t look that impressive, if that’s all you look at. Not bad, but not overwhelming. It does not tell the whole story. Through five innings, pitch count aside, Rodriguez was flawless. He was perfect.
Through the first two innings, Rodriguez threw 39 pitches, which put him in an early hole as far as going deep into the game. But he struck out his first two in the game in the second including getting Richie Palacios swinging on a 99.3 mph fastball.
The Orioles got their first lead in the third inning thanks to the clutch duo of Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman. Henderson’s double went down the left field line and Rutschman doinked a single into right field. Anthony Santander doubled the team’s lead the very next inning with his 14th home run of the year. The blast went 393 feet. Santandar’s hot June continues; he’s now 11-for-36 in the month with five home runs.
The Orioles did not score in the fifth inning, but something good did happen. Cedric Mullins, who hadn’t notched a hit since May 27th, lined a single to right field. Hooray, Cedric! He had been on an 0-for-25 stretch since his last hit with just two walks. Mullins also stole second but was stranded. It was the first of two hits for him in the game and I think I speak for us all when I say that I hope this is the beginning of something.
At the same time the bats were heating up, Rodriguez cleaned up his game. He continued his perfection but cut down his pitch count so that he sat at 62 after four and 75 after five. Far from complete game territory, but to the realm where we could imagine him getting through at least seven. Unfortunately for Grayson it didn’t work out that way.
After the Orioles added on a third run courtesy of back-to-back extra-base hits by team besties Jordan Westburg (double) and Colton Cowser (triple), Rodriguez came back out and immediately lost the perfecto by walking Taylor Walls. No biggie. He retired Ben Rortvedt and José Caballero and quickly went 0-2 on Yandy Díaz, but then couldn’t put him away. Díaz worked him for an eight-pitch at-bat that ended with the first hit of a day for the Rays.
Díaz singled up the middle and Brandon Lowe worked a 3-2 count before hitting a line drive of his own. Walls scored and with runners on first and third, Rodriguez’s day was over. Dillon Tate came in and let one of those inherited runners score. Grayson Rodriguez’s final line: 5.2 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 6 K. As I said, it doesn’t look as impressive as his game actually was.
The score was 3-2 at the end of six innings and the game felt close to falling apart. But the Orioles made sure that feeling went away fast. In the top of the seventh, they added on two more runs to immediately give themselves breathing room.
First up in the seventh was Mullins. He hit a fly ball deep to right center field. Rays’ CF Jonny DeLuca went into a dive to try to catch it, but it went off his glove and Cedric was off to the races. He landed on third with a triple. You love to see good things for Mullins. Henderson followed with an infield single to the drawn infield. Mullins held at third but came in to score when Rutschman singled in the next at-bat.
Ryan Mountcastle earned himself an RBI on a ground out to second base for the second run of the inning and the lead was back to three runs. It was about to be a whole lot more.
Phil Maton, brother of O’s farmhand Nick, came in to start the seventh inning. Interesting choice given that Maton just threw 31 pitches yesterday while giving up three runs and getting just one out.
First up against Maton was Westburg, who launched a ball to left field. It landed beyond Randy Arozarena and started kicking around. Westburg, like Cowser and Mullins before him, raced his way into third base. Westburg doesn’t seem like a fast guy, but that was his 5th triple of the season.
Cowser was unable to bring him in, and after Ramón Urías walked, Mullins had another chance but popped out. Henderson followed with a walk to load the bases.
Adley Rutschman stepped to the plate, already with two singles and two RBI. He went into an 0-2 count, fouled off two pitches, and then golfed a low curveball deep into the night. The ball landed in the stands in right-center field 390 feet away. It was good enough to be a homer in all 30 ballparks per Statcast. The many, many Orioles fans in attendance went wild and the game became a laugher at 9-2.
As you do when a game is a laugher, the Orioles brought in Keegan Akin to finish things out. Akin was good enough. He pitched the final two innings for the win, giving up three hits and a walk but zero runs.
Orioles win, 9-2! Grayson Rodriguez was perfect through five, Adley Rutschman had three hits including a grand slam, Jordan Westburg, Colton Cowser, and Cedric Mullins all had multi-hit games including a triple, and Anthony Santander hit his 14th home run of the season.
Tomorrow the team goes for the four-game sweep (or mop, if you will) with staff ace Corbin Burnes on the mound. Game time is 6:50 p.m.