Baltimore third loss in a row saw the Birds tie the game and surrender the winning run in the same inning.
A valiant comeback attempt fell short Wednesday night in DC, as the Orioles dropped their third straight game, losing 4-3 to the Nationals.
Trailing 3-1 in the 7th, the O’s were briefly able to give Birdland some hope by grinding out two runs to tie the game at three. The rally started in the 7th against Nats reliever Jose A. Ferrer. Cedric Mullins led off the inning with a left-on-left single slapped into left field. Adley Rutschman then worked a six-pitch walk before Ferrer hit pinch-hitter Ryan Mountcastle to load the bases.
Tyler O’Neill then had an opportunity to make his first big splash (seemingly) since his Opening Day home run, facing former Oriole Jorge Lopez. O’Neill instead lifted a sac fly to right field and Mullins’ head-first slide beat the throw of RF Dylan Crews to the plate. With the O’s now down 3-2, Heston Kjerstad tried to blast them into the lead, jumping on a fastball from Lopez, but his flyball died on the warning track in left-center for the third out.
Jordan Westburg kept the spirit of the comeback alive with a lead-off triple against Lopez in the 8th. As Westburg’s shot down the line nestled into the right field corner, this writer found himself hoping that the clutch hit might be the spark the Orioles needed to steal this game. The bottom of the O’s lineup couldn’t use Westburg’s spark to ignite a full-blown rally, though, instead settling for a tie after another sac fly from Ramón Urías.
After the bats worked hard to tie the game, Gregory Soto worked just as hard to give the lead back in the bottom of the 8th. Pinch-hitter Alex Call led off the inning by dumping a single into center in front of a charging Mullins. Soto then got ahead of James Wood 1-2, but couldn’t put the big lefty away, eventually issuing an eight-pitch walk.
Nathaniel Lowe nearly grounded into a well-timed 5-4-3 double play, only for the lumbering 1B to beat Jackson Holliday’s throw to Mountcastle at first. That gave the Nats runners at first and third with one out, and allowed Luis García Jr. to break the tie on a sac fly to Mullins that brought home Call.
The Orioles had the makings of a potential game-tying rally in the 9th, only to come up short. Against Nats’ All-Star closer Kyle Finnegan, Gunnar Henderson led off the inning with some hustle, beating out an infield single on a ball bounced up the middle. Adley Rutschman then continued his streak of bad luck, lining a ball up the middle that had an xBA of .710, only for it to nestle into the glove of a leaping Nasim Nuñez at SS.
Mountcastle moved the tying run to second base with a one-out single to left, but an O’Neill strikeout meant it once again all fell on Kjerstad to be the hero. Silent J coudln’t better his result from the 7th, popping up to third to end the game.
After being outscored 31-2 over their last two games, the low-scoring affair was at least a small whiff of fresh air for Orioles fans. Starter Tomoyuki Sugano finally reminded Orioles fans what an effective starting pitcher looks like, going seven strong innings for the second start in a row.
Early on, it looked like the gravity of the rotation’s massive struggles was going to bring down Sugano as well. He started his evening by giving up a solo HR to the Nationals’ budding star, Wood. Sugano tried to beat Wood with a sinker in on the hands, and instead, the 22-year-old Maryland native turned on the pitch and smashed into the right field seats.
The 1st went from bad to worse for the 35-year-old rookie with two outs in the inning. Nats’ clean-up hitter Keibert Ruiz bounced a hard-hit single past Jackson Holliday at second to extend the inning. Sugano then hung a 2-0 curveball to former All-Star Josh Bell, who Bell-ted it almost 400 ft. for a two-run homer.
Sugano could’ve been shaken after allowing a three-run 1st inning, but the former MVP of the NPB locked in to keep the Orioles in the game. The seasoned Japanese righty set down the next nine hitters he faced. He rolled three groundouts in the 2nd, a pair of grounds sandwiched around a flyout in the 3rd and started off the 4th with a lazy fly to left and a ground out to first base.
Dylan Crews broke up the streak with a single up the middle before Sugano got José Tena to ground out to end the 4th. The Crews single was one of only two hits the Orioles’ only reliable starter allowed after the 1st. He worked a clean 5th inning, including picking up his only strikeout with a 3-2 sweeper at the knees to Wood.
Nathaniel Lowe led off the 6th with a single, but was erased on a fielder’s choice hit to first base. Ruiz then hit a loud fly ball that Mullins caught on the warning track in center before Bell smashed a ground out to first base. Sugano finished his evening with another couple of easy groundouts in the 7th before getting a slicing flyout to right to close out his second straight excellent outing. Sugano finished with a final line of 7.0 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 1 K and 0 BB—his second consecutive start with 7 IP and 0 BBs.
Still, when the pitching isn’t imploding, this team still hasn’t shaken off the clutch-hitting woes that plagued them to end last season. The O’s finished Wednesday’s game 1-for-12 with RISP, with the only hit coming on an RBI single from Rutschman in the 3rd. Baltimore actually outhit Washington 10 to six, but couldn’t get enough big hits to cancel out the Nats’ big flies.
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The loss drops the Orioles to 9-14 and seals their fifth series loss in eight series this season. Mullins, Rutschman each had two hits on Wednesday, but the O’s only managed one extra-base hit—Westburg’s triple in the 8th. Baltimore will try to pick up a consolation win tomorrow when Cade Povich faces off against Nationals’ ace MacKenzie Gore.