The Orioles had lost their previous four spring games against the Pirates.
Every passing day brings us closer to the regular season. The closer it gets, the more important it is that the players who matter are looking like they’re getting into regular season form. The Orioles played the Pirates on Monday night and the most important thing was Félix Bautista continuing to get his work in. As a nice bonus, the Orioles won, 6-3, their first spring win over Pittsburgh in five tries.
One way that you can tell that the outcome of the game didn’t matter is that the Orioles starting pitcher was Matt Bowman. The Maryland-born Bowman pitched in 15 games for the O’s a year ago and is back in this camp as a non-roster invite. He’s fine. But there’s no scenario short of disaster where he’s regularly starting real games for the team. Good for him for striking out four guys in 1.2 scoreless innings on Monday.
The guy worth paying attention to was Bautista. It would be nice to look at a 1-2-3 inning with three strikeouts. That’s not the inning he got. After striking out the first batter, Bautista allowed a triple to Jared Triolo. Well, that’s what the official box score says. In reality, this was one of those batted balls that had no business being a triple. Center fielder Dylan Carlson realized too late that he wasn’t going to catch the ball and he was in a bad position to play the carom.
The next two batters got hits as well and Bautista ended up with two runs allowed in his one inning. It doesn’t matter yet. He’s working back to his regular velocity. In this outing, Bautista averaged 97mph and touched 99 (well, 98.5 but rounded up) once. He’s still getting a feel for getting the splitter into the strike zone. Also, maybe he’s throwing a cutter now? I don’t know if this will happen in the regular season.
Bautista’s two runs allowed cut a 3-0 Orioles lead to 3-2. The O’s held that early lead as the bottom of the lineup came through against Pirates starter Mitch Keller. Daz Cameron drove in two runs, and after the lineup turned over, Jordan Westburg drove in another. It’s nice to see Westburg getting things done.
Later in the game, Samuel Basallo hit the kind of colossal home run that was a reminder of why he’s got so many people so excited about his power potential:
Samuel Basallo hits baseballs very, very far
@MLBPipeline’s No. 13 overall prospect CRUSHED this pitch!
Cameras are just not configured to even get a sense of where that ball landed. Statcast provided an estimated distance of 403 feet, which has the defect of not feeling awesome enough. Jackson Holliday agrees. The Pirates announcer in the clip notes that the wind was going out to right, so there was probably extra distance beyond the wind-neutral estimation that Statcast provided.
It’s an impressive home run no matter what number of feet the computer says. Or at least it’s as impressive as a spring training home run that’s hit off of failed Oriole Isaac Mattson can possibly be.
This was a three-run dinger to set up a 6-2 lead. A non-factor reliever allowed the third and final Pirates run.
One other subplot of interest was Jackson Holliday playing shortstop. With Gunnar Henderson on the shelf for a still-undetermined amount of time, somebody’s going to have to play the position and Holliday might well have stuck there in an organization that didn’t have a Henderson-level talent already. He had a throw go wide for an error but otherwise looked fine. Hopefully he doesn’t need to be ready for more than the occasional fill-in game there.
About Henderson, manager Brandon Hyde told Orioles reporters that the timetable for return is still uncertain, but added that Henderson is “progressing well.” I will not share that sentiment until there’s a timetable.
The Orioles will be back in action on Tuesday afternoon at 1:05. That game, like this Monday night affair, will actually be televised on MASN, so you can watch Albert Suárez and others play if you are able.