The Milkman’s three-run shot made it three games in a row with a home run. Charlie Morton was good too.
One day after the Orioles were on the wrong end of history with blowing an 8-0 lead, they bounced back. Colton Cowser delivered the big hit of the night, cracking a home run for the third game in a row when the team needed one. Cowser’s three-run homer put the O’s up, 4-1, and they held on through some wild bullpen shenanigans to salvage a series split over the Rays by that same final score.
Not to be lost around all of the other drama in the game, starting pitcher Charlie Morton was good again. The Orioles really needed a good outing as well as a lengthy one from their veteran who is one day younger than me, and they got one. Things could have gotten quite ugly if the bullpen needed to cover four or five innings again.
Instead, Morton went six, he struck out seven, walked none, and only allowed one run in this time. He didn’t have to pitch to the since-optioned Maverick Handley to do it. This outing lowered Morton’s season ERA to 5.64. He needs several more like that to get in a good place for his overall numbers. That said, this is a solid trajectory that he has been on since about May 1.
The Rays did manage to take the early lead on Morton with a classic Orioles “get beat by the bottom of the lineup” kind of thing in the bottom of the third inning. The first batter of the inning, Jose Caballero, stuck out his elbow and was maybe grazed in the elbow pad by a curveball. Caballero was awarded first base on a hit by pitch because no almost umpire ever actually enforces the “batter must attempt to avoid the pitch” rule.
Caballero brought 27 stolen bases into the game and quickly picked up #28, despite Adley Rutschman making one of his better throws. Rays #8 hitter Kameron Misner dropped a sacrifice bunt to push Caballero to third, and #9 batter Danny Jansen drove a single past a drawn-in Gunnar Henderson into left field to give the Rays the 1-0 lead.
The Orioles did not waste any time in tying up the game. They got their own hit by pitch in the top of the fourth inning as Henderson was actually hit by a pitch. Henderson advanced to second base on a groundout. This was the second out, however, so it would take either a two-out hit or something very weird to score the run. Lately-slumping Ryan O’Hearn ripped a grounder up the middle to score Henderson and knot the game at 1-1.
That’s where the score stayed until the sixth inning. The O’s wasted Cowser hitting a leadoff double in the fifth, and the Rays were similarly unable to capitalize in their half of the inning after this series’s unexpected pest, Jake Mangum, sliced an 0-2 pitch towards Henderson that was not fielded cleanly. An errant pickoff throw got Mangum to second base, but Morton was able to bear down against the bottom of the order and this time struck out the #8 and #9 guys.
The decisive rally for the Orioles began with Henderson reaching base on an infield single of his own. Tampa Bay chose to pull its starter, Drew Rasmussen, at 92 pitches after he struck out Jordan Westburg for the first out. Reliever Edwin Uceta got O’Hearn to ground out for the second out. Ramón Laureano extended the rally by drawing a walk. This brought Cowser to the plate with a chance to come up big.
Coming up big has been a challenge for Cowser in his career to date, it must be said. He brought a .203/.265/.372 batting line with runners in scoring position into this game. That’s substantially worse than his overall batting. Two pitches into Cowser’s at-bat against Uceta, he had an 0-2 count. After fouling off a pitch, Jansen set up Uceta to pitch to Cowser above the strike zone, hoping Cowser would swing through it.
Uceta did not get the pitch elevated enough. Instead, it was Cowser who elevated: A 31 degree launch angle fly ball that landed 369 feet from home plate. This is the third straight game with a home run for Cowser. His big swing put the Orioles up, 4-1. This was the final margin of victory, though O’s relievers did make things interesting.
Obviously, when blowing an eight-run lead is fresh in everyone’s memory, a three-run lead is practically a pittance. The Orioles could blow that just from sneezing. It’s almost like they were trying. Summoned for the seventh, Seranthony Domínguez walked his first batter on four pitches and after getting two strikes to the next batter, Mangum, couldn’t put him away. Both of these runners advanced on a wild pitch before Domínguez recovered and retired the 7-8-9 batters, avoiding the bottom of the lineup curse.
Lefty Gregory Soto was brought in for the eighth inning. Did he, too, walk the first batter he saw on four pitches? Why, yes, he did. Soto picked up a strikeout before allowing a base hit to Yandy Díaz. This brought the tying run to the plate in the form of pinch hitter Christopher Morel. Soto got another strikeout, and then, with a righty batter due up, the Orioles opted to bring in Bryan Baker to try to finish off the inning.
Baker was pitching for a third consecutive night. Have you picked up on the pattern? Baker also walked the first batter he saw on four pitches, loading the bases and setting up Mangum at the plate as the go-ahead run. Mangum has only one home run all season. Fortunately, this time, the Orioles did not author one of their “give up a homer to a guy who barely ever homers” disasters. Mangum flew out harmlessly to left.
Félix Bautista was handed the ninth. He did not walk the first batter he saw on four pitches. He did not walk the first batter at all, nor any other batter, although he did go to three-ball counts to everybody to make us sweat, if not quite as much as the players themselves were sweating in the outdoor heat and humidity of Tampa in June. Facing the 7-8-9 hitters, Bautista dodged that curse just like Domínguez did and retired the side in order, striking out Jansen to end the game.
After what happened in Wednesday night’s game, I wasn’t sure the Orioles had this bounce-back in them. I was wrong. They came out on top against an opposing starting pitcher who’s been very good this season. They did it the day after an especially inept loss. They did it despite being outhit, 8-6. There’s some fight in these guys. They’re going to need it, because there’s no off day and a late night’s flight to New York, where they will be facing Max Fried, a lefty with a 1.89 ERA, at 7:05 tomorrow night.