When Santander is in the midst of one of his hot months, all the other team can do is watch it go over the fence
Saturday started out with some potentially grim news for Orioles fans as Kyle Bradish was placed on the injured list with a right UCL sprain. When the game began, things got worse, with Grayson Rodriguez giving up a run to the Phillies in each of the first two innings. The day got better from there, which doesn’t solve the Bradish problem but does put the O’s in the win column. Anthony Santander’s two home runs powered a 6-2 victory in front of another sellout crowd at Camden Yards.
We know from the past with Santander that sometimes there are months where it’s like he puts the whole offense on his back. April and May 2024 were not those months. June 2024 is one. Santander has now homered eight times in 15 June games, nearly doubling up the number of homers he brought into this month with half of it still remaining. It is fun. His Saturday homers included a game-tying blast in the fourth inning and a game-icing dinger in the eighth. They let him get hot and they’re going to pay until he goes cold again.
The cheer was not there early on. Last night’s extra-innings, post-rain delay loss plus the Bradish news were the fresh things on the minds of Orioles fans and so when Rodriguez gave up two first-inning hits, with Alec Bohm delivering an RBI double to put Philly on the board, that was a bummer. Things did not improve as shortstop Edmundo Sosa led off the top of the second inning with a home run, his fifth of the season, to make it a 2-0 Philly lead. What if all of these things were the early signs of a Rodriguez clunker?
Friends, they were not signs of a clunker. Rodriguez got things going in the right direction and he went on to turn in his tenth start (in 12 tries) where he allowed two runs or fewer. He was efficient in his out-getting, carrying a low enough pitch count through six innings that he could come out for the seventh and finish that inning too.
After the second inning, Rodriguez allowed just four hits over the next five frames, and zero walks. It added up to this line by day’s end: 7 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K. He shaved a little bit off of his season ERA number, dropping to a 3.20 on the season. This is a Phillies offense that has been putting teams to the screws this season and Rodriguez recovered from the early hiccup to dominate them. He had a great day.
So did the Orioles offense, although they waited until after the Phillies had jumped to that 2-0 lead to start to show us their quality. Facing starting pitcher Taijuan Walker, who brought a 5.40 ERA into the game, sure, it would have been nice if the O’s scored four runs in the first two innings, but it’s not always that easy. The O’s went down in order in the first inning and weren’t able to score after getting a walk and a single in the second.
Walker’s zeroes stopped in the third inning. A leadoff double hit by Ramón Urías was quickly followed by Gunnar Henderson rocketing a ground ball up the middle; Philly’s second baseman Bryson Stott got a glove on it to keep the run from scoring on the base hit. The Orioles didn’t keep us in suspense for long about whether they’d bring the guy home from third with no one out. Adley Rutschman hit a line drive out to right field that scored Urías for the first O’s run.
The rally got no farther in the third, but that’s okay, because enough guys came to the plate to bring up Santander to lead off the fourth inning. There’s no such thing as a bad Orioles home run, but some are certainly more fun than others. I’m talking like, they’re crushed so hard that the outfielders barely even do much more than turn and watch them land in the stands. That’s what Santander hit as he tied the game at 2-2: A majestic 424-foot dinger.
Following Santander’s game-tying shot, the next six Orioles went down in order. The bottom of the sixth opened up with the Ryan duo of Mountcastle and O’Hearn getting back-to-back singles. O’Hearn’s was a run-and-hit that went textbook into the open hole towards right field, allowing Mountcastle to get to third base on the play. The extra base was important since Santander followed with a deep fly ball and Mountcastle scored the go-ahead run on that sacrifice fly.
This turned out to be the Orioles taking the lead for good, not that you could have been confident about that at the time. Or, indeed, for a couple of innings afterwards. After Rodriguez’s seven innings, the first guy out of the bullpen to protect the 3-2 lead was Bryan Baker. If you just shuddered at seeing his name, I get it. Baker retired three Phillies in order on 11 pitches, a strong counter to the haters like me. We need many more like that to be even for last year’s playoffs.
The bottom of the eighth saw the O’s add insurance runs and ultimately take the game out of save range. Santander’s second home run of the game – another “the outfielder barely does more than turn around” homer – came on the heels of O’Hearn picking up a second hit. O’Hearn was replaced by a pinch runner, Jorge Mateo, who didn’t have to do much running – though he was on the move on the pitch that Santander nearly launched onto Eutaw Street.
Following Philly reliever José Ruiz getting two outs, the O’s scraped a rally out of three singles in a row, capped by Henderson driving in the sixth and final O’s run of the game.
Closer Craig Kimbrel had been warming at the start of the inning because of course the closer would come into a one-run game. He continued tossing lightly even once the save was removed from the equation. Perhaps figuring he’d already warmed up enough to have counted as pitching today, the Orioles brought him in to finish the game.
Kimbrel walked the first dude he saw and then struck out the next three to send the O’s fans home happy. He’ll presumably be unavailable no matter what on Sunday, then gets a day off on Monday when the O’s are off, and will hopefully be available as soon as needed against the Yankees next week. The 46-24 Orioles could gain a game on New York if the Red Sox beat the Yankees later on Saturday night. I won’t hold my breath.
Up to this point, these two teams who are at or near the top of their respective leagues have played a series that’s lived up to the hype. We’ll see if the rubber game can carry that all the way through. Corbin Burnes and Zack Wheeler, two of MLB’s great aces over the past several seasons, are set to start the Father’s Day series finale.