The Orioles didn’t even need to hit a home run to do it.
The Orioles won on Sunday and nobody got hurt. It really can happen. They closed out the weekend’s series against the Rays with a 5-1 victory that saw Dean Kremer drop seven shutout innings. The O’s offense scored its five runs with eight of the nine starting batters collecting hits, and without any of them hitting a home run. Watching a win like that, one could be tempted, if they haven’t hurt you enough already, to thinking this team isn’t as bad as it looked through about mid-May.
Kremer hanging nothing but zeroes on the Rays in this afternoon’s contest was not a given. The very first Rays batter, Josh Lowe, kept fouling off two-strike pitches and eventually won the battle with a single. Tampa ended up with two men on base with one out. They could have put Kremer on the ropes if they had gotten one more hit that inning. They didn’t, and Kremer survived.
As it turned out, that was the best chance that the Rays were going to get all day. Once the Rays got two men on with one out against Kremer in the first inning, he turned things around and retired 19 of the next 21 Rays batters. They had nothing on him. The coin landed on Good Dean Kremer today.
There was only one inning from the second inning on in which Kremer faced more than the minimum three batters. That was the fourth inning, when recent Orioles pest Jake Mangum picked up an infield single and stole second after two men were already out. A sixth inning walk was erased by a double play. All in all, Kremer allowed just four baserunners over seven innings. He struck out six guys. This fantastic outing lowered his season ERA to 4.27. He’s shaved nearly three-quarters of a run off the ERA over his last three starts.
While Kremer was putting up zeroes on the Rays, Orioles hitters were working on their clutch hitting. The five runs were driven in by five different batters. Two of the five runs, they didn’t even need to get a hit to score them, with the O’s picking up sacrifice flies to cash in runs in consecutive innings. More than one of these runs was aided by third base coach Buck Britton picking the right times for an aggressive send.
Many games that the Orioles have played this year have made it easy to be down on them. Yet they’re still capable of coming out and firing off a good, whole team kind of victory like this. Ramón Laureano led the way with two hits and two runs scored. Gary Sánchez had a multi-hit game as well, bumping his season OPS up to .760.
The Orioles offense seems to have something figured out with Rays starting pitcher Taj Bradley. That’s who was on the mound for them today. Last we saw Bradley, he gave up seven runs (six earned) as the Orioles staked an 8-0 lead in Tampa 11 days ago. Let’s not dwell on what happened after that point in that game.
Bradley was socked around again on Sunday afternoon, allowing all five of the runs across a 5.1 inning start. Orioles batters had eight hits and drew one walk against Bradley. His outing would have looked a little better if reliever Kevin Kelly hadn’t let the two inherited runners score.
This time, nothing horrible happened after the Orioles took a sizable lead. Kremer pitched deep into the game. Keegan Akin tossed a scoreless eighth, though it must be noted that he was helped in a big way with Colton Cowser robbing what would have been a two-run home run with a well-timed, high leap at the left field fence. Had the Rays cut the lead to three in the eighth with only one out, things might have gotten more tense than they did. The Milkman delivered. On MASN, Ben McDonald riffed on a famous line in Baltimore broadcasting by exclaiming, “Ain’t the milk cold?” Indeed, it was.
With Félix Bautista not having pitched since five days ago, the Orioles opted to bring him out for the ninth inning even though it wasn’t a save situation. Bautista’s first batter, Brandon Lowe, hit a home run. The second, Yandy Díaz, drew a walk. This was just enough where you absolutely had to wonder, oh no, is something tragic about to happen where it all falls apart? Bautista recovered, striking out the next three batters in order. The tying run got no closer than in the hole.
All in all, there were two good wins in this series. Friday night’s eventual blowout saw the Orioles fall in a 6-0 deficit early on. They bounced back from getting blown out themselves on Saturday with a fine effort today. The only problem now is winning two of three isn’t enough to get them anywhere good by the trade deadline. They’re 36-47 after taking this series from the Rays, 6-7 games back of a wild card spot with seven teams to pass.
Doing this thing is going to require a big winning streak starting right about now. The next team standing in their way of pulling that off is the Texas Rangers, who the Orioles will be traveling to face for the next three nights. If they pitch and hit and field as well as they did here on Sunday afternoon, I like their chances to keep things fun for a little while longer. Trevor Rogers and Patrick Corbin are set as the starting pitchers for Monday’s 8:05 series opener.