BALTIMORE–What happened? For the first time in more than four years, the Orioles were swept in a four-game series. In their homestand against Houston and the Boston Red Sox, the Orioles lost seven of eight.
While they did score two runs against Boston starter and Cy Young contender Garrett Crochet, who’d held them scoreless in 10 innings at home, it wasn’t enough.
Romy Gonzalez’s RBI single against Rico Garcia scored Roman Anthony in the eighth to give the Red Sox a 3-2 win over the Orioles before 15,374 at Camden Yards on Thursday.
Anthony walked against Garcia (0-1) to start the eighth, and Gonzalez singled with two outs.
The Orioles (60-74) last were swept in a four-game series from August 16th-19th, 2021 at Tampa Bay. Boston is 75-60.
Trevor Story homered in the first inning against Cade Povich. After Alex Jackson hit his fourth home run against Crochet in the third, Rob Refsnyder homered in the fourth.
Povich allowed two runs on seven hits in six innings. It was the fourth time Povich had given up at least two home runs.
“They were pretty aggressive out of the gate, which honestly kind of matched my game plan going in,” Povich said. “I told A-Jax basically, ‘Let’s just see how quick we can get at-bats over with. Who cares about what the result is? Let’s just get guys up, let’s get ’em out, let’s try and be efficient.’
“Turns out the first one went that way. Second, kind of dug myself in the hole, but I think the rest of the way the game plan kind of stuck and was a lot better.”
In the fifth, Crochet hit Alex Jackson with a pitch. Jackson Holliday singled, and Jeremiah Jackson’s double scored Alex Jackson to tie it at 2-2. After Gunnar Henderson struck out, Story made a diving catch to his left at short on Ryan Mountcastle’s liner and then threw Alex Bregman at third to double up Holliday.
Crochet allowed two runs on six hits in six innings.
“I thought we did a good job creating some traffic against one of the great left-handed pitchers in the game right now,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “Definitely pleased with what we threw out there today and the at-bats that we had and the fact that, you know, I think it was maybe in the fourth inning, you looked up and he was pushing 70 pitches.
“That was kind of one of the things with those types of pitchers is you’ve got to build up pitch counts. You’ve got to try to get him out of the game as soon as you can. So we created a lot of traffic, we had runners in scoring position, just weren’t able to execute at the right times.”
The Orioles were 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
Kade Strowd retired all six batters he faced in the sixth and seventh.
Jordan Hicks (2-7) pitched a scoreless eighth. The Orioles had first and second with two outs against Garrett Whitlock in the eighth, but Dylan Beavers struck out.
Dylan Carlson doubled to lead off the ninth against Steven Matz. He tried to advance to third on Alex Jackson’s grounder to short, and Story threw to Bregman, who tagged him out. Holliday and Jeremiah Jackson flied to center, and Matz had his first save.
What happened on the bases? Holliday was doubled off third in the fifth on an excellent play by Story, and Carlson was out at third on a grounder to short in the ninth.
“We’ve established that 100 percent of the teams in the league, the way they run contact, is if they hit a line drive, you will be doubled off at third base,” Mansolino said. “If you’re trying to read the ball on the ground to an infielder, you’re going to be thrown out at the plate. All 100 [percent] teams that run contact, they will get doubled off on a line drive.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t seen a lot of line drive double plays on contact here over the last couple years, but we’ve had two of them recently. If a runner is on contact and they hit a line drive in the infield and they do not get doubled off, all 30 managers in the big leagues will tell you he did not run contact well right there. So tip your cap to Trevor Story, it’s a nice play. He made two really good plays.
“Unlucky for us that he was in tight right there [to keep Carlson closer to the bag on the grounder by Jackson], and he fields that ball … as opposed to being deeper towards the back of the grass. If he’s deeper towards the back of the grass, given the fact that the ball was actually behind Dylan, it wasn’t in front of him, then he’s probably safe. So it was just very unfortunate that Story is right there.
“DC can not feel that he’s staying right there behind him. There’s a ball to his left, he goes, you tip your cap to Trevor Story, made two game-saving plays for them today.”
What does it mean? The Orioles look tired. It’s been a difficult season, and they’ll try for as many wins as they can in the final month of play.
What’s the stat of the day? The four games against Boston were played in two hours, 24, 25, 26 and 27 minutes.
What’s the word? “We’ve faced a lot of top opponents the last month, and we’ve done really well against them. So, we’re just on a weird little stretch right now. But, yeah, we’re going to win some games.”-Henderson on how the Orioles are playing.
What’s next? The Orioles begin a three-game series at the San Francisco Giants on Friday night at 10:15 Eastern time. Dean Kremer (9-9, 4.19) will face Robbie Ray (10-6, 2.93) The game will be televised exclusively on AppleTV+
Call for questions: Most weekdays, I’l be answering at least one Orioles question. Please send yours to: Rich@BaltimoreBaseball.com