RISP woes and a hittable Trevor Rogers send O’s to a 9-3 loss against the Nationals

Five earned runs by the starter, four more by Bryan Baker and Keegan Akin and nine runners stranded—it’s not a formula for success.

“If you live in the middle of the plate against this team,” pronounced Jim Palmer in the MASN booth tonight, “you’ll be taking an early shower.” Palmer was referring to second-year Washington righty Jake Irvin, who struggled early tonight against O’s hitters. But it ended up being the Orioles who failed to heed the HOF’er’s advice. In five innings, starter Trevor Rogers gave up a whopping seven hits, five runs and two walks—doing nothing to make you think he deserves the game ball in important games down the stretch. Reliever Bryan Baker, given command of the sixth, gave up a parade of hits to make it 7-2 Nationals, and Keegan Akin surrendered one run in each of the eighth and ninth innings.

Meanwhile, the Orioles bats looked anemic. They put together seven hits, and Team Ryan (O’Hearn and Mountcastle) reached base five times between them, but of the two, O’Hearn scored just once. The team left nine runners on base and frankly, was really hurt by 0-for-5 nights from their leadoff and No. 3 hitters, Colton Cowser and Gunnar Henderson.

The Orioles were in this one early on, the game tied 2-2 after three. O’s lefty Trevor Rogers had given up his two runs in a stupid way, serving up a soft double, a walk, and an RBI single to the 21-year-old James Wood, a terror tonight. Standing at first, Wood, a Rockville native, did his hometown team dirty again, luring the O’s into a rundown. Somehow Ryan Mountcastle forgot that CJ Abrams was at third, and Abrams scored. D’oh.

The Birds quickly tied it with back-to-back-to-back singles off Jake Irvin in the second inning, courtesy of Ryan O’Hearn (2-for-2 with a walk today), Adley Rutschman and Ryan Mountcastle. In the third, Anthony Santander drove a 3-0 sinker 400 feet to pull the Orioles even. “Mashed Potato,” O’s Twitter called it. It was Tony Tater’s 36th tater of the season, the most home runs ever by an Orioles switch-hitter in a single season.

At this point, the Nats’ Irvin seemed to be in trouble, having thrown a lot of middle-middle fastballs that O’s hitters were smacking. But Baltimore’s situational hitting petered out, and the game took a turn. Key moments were Jackson Holliday whiffing with one out and runners on second and third in the third, and Colton Cowser leaving two more on with a rally-killing groundout in the fourth.

Instead of an early trip to the showers, the Washington starter kept getting better, and he managed to deliver six innings with just two runs allowed.

As for the O’s starter, it was the fourth inning when Rogers really lost the plot, and the Nats surged ahead for good. James Wood singled, and Andrés Chaparro, making his MLB debut, doubled Wood to third. A deep fly was snagged by Santander in right, but a third run scored. Same thing to Mullins in center, and there was a fourth Nats run. Jim Palmer commented on Rogers’ inability to strike out hitters with two strikes.

Rogers wasn’t long for this game. In the sixth, he allowed a leadoff single to James Wood (the rookie had a four-hit night. . . cue obscenicon here). That hit, Rogers’ seventh allowed, on his 78th pitch, sent manager Brandon Hyde out for Bryan Baker. Alas, this was definitely Bad Baker tonight: he heaves a bunch of fastballs over the plate, batters see these coming a mile away, and boom, there goes a bunch of hard contact. Three runs came in to make it 7-2.

Was Baker the right choice in this situation? The MASN booth implied he might not have been, Jim Palmer bringing up a conversation he’d had with Hyde over how he was going to use Baker and Craig Kimbrel, two of the team’s least effective relievers right now. “Hyde said they were going to have to step up,” was the answer, meaning the O’s manager will not play his spots and hide people in low-leverage situations. I dunno, it certainly felt like Baker got handed a 4-2 game in the sixth with no outs and a runner on first and dug a hole too deep for his team to climb out of.

As for the rest of the game, meh. Keegan Akin looked bad. He allowed back-to-back doubles to James Wood and Andrés Chaparro (3-for-4 tonight—nice MLB debut) in the eighth to make it 8-2. And then a third double and a single in the ninth to make it 9-2.

On the other hand, Gregory Soto, who’s been on the struggle bus so far, threw one dominant inning on just eight pitches, seven of which were strikes. Low leverage situations for some, not others? Huh. But tonight made me feel better about the hard-throwing lefty.

One more tiny silver lining was a third Orioles run in the ninth, courtesy of great at-bats by Cedric Mullins and Jackson Holliday off a Washington rookie. Give them credit for their approach. Cowser drove in Mullins with a fielder’s choice.

Anyway, for the Orioles, tonight’s game leaves questions. Can Trevor Rogers be trusted with… anything? What about Bryan Baker and Keegan Akin, with a 5.40 and 4.42 ERA in their last 15 games, respectively?

Tough questions, and a tough loss.