The most consistent thing about the 2025 Orioles remains this: They will not let you feel good about them for long. Friday could have easily been a day for feeling good for O’s fans, what with the day’s news of the contract extension for catching prospect Samuel Basallo. Game time rolled around and he wasn’t even in the starting lineup. The Orioles went on to play one of this year’s patented dumb games where a variety of stupid and bad things happen and they ended up losing to the Astros, 10-7.
Basallo
did get his chance, as it turned out, as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Orioles, at that time, were down by a 7-6 score and the tying run was on base. Could the young guy start his legend? Alas, no. He struck out on three pitches. In fairness to Basallo, the first of these pitches was outside of the strike zone. The home plate umpire was Laz Diaz, whose reign of umpiring ridiculousness has not been ended yet.
Let’s back things up a bit. A variety of things went wrong long before that, as a variety of things went wrong after. The Orioles offense set the tone for a game full of blown opportunities in the bottom of the first inning, getting their first two men on base and ultimately loading the bases with only one out. With Houston’s Lance McCullers Jr. potentially on the ropes, could they capitalize? No, of course not. Colton Cowser and Coby Mayo struck out.
That kept things scoreless until the third inning. Astros batters went 1-2-3 against Orioles starter Cade Povich in each of the first two innings. The magic did not last. Povich issued a leadoff walk in the third, then his defense started adding to his list of problems. A routine ground ball to third base led to Luis Vázquez sailing the throw to first, putting two men on.
Houston’s #9 hitter Chas McCormick, who has been horrible this season, dropped a bunt for an intended sacrifice. Povich fielded the ball and made a throw to first that Mayo did not catch. The first run of the game scored on the play. It wasn’t all that bad of a throw, really. Mayo, who the Orioles did not start giving first base experience in earnest until this season, just missed the catch. Houston had a 1-0 lead and there were still two men on base.
The test for Povich was simple: Overcome this situation his defense had placed him in with no further damage. Povich failed the test. He hung a curveball to Houston’s Jeremy Peña and Peña did not miss, launching a home run into the kid’s standing area in the left field seats. That was some classic Orioles-era Jake Arrieta stuff. It wasn’t all his fault that things started going badly. It was his fault that they ended up badly.
Many games earlier this season saw the Orioles fall behind in the first few innings and it seemed like the offense folded up the tents. It’s August now, friends. We’ve moved past that. The O’s scored enough to keep things interesting, plating three runs in the fourth inning. This was capped by Jeremiah Jackson hitting a double that was in the glove of Houston’s right fielder, Cam Smith, before it suddenly wasn’t. That scored two runs and brought the O’s back within a run.
Povich set about giving the runs back right after that. He got our hopes up first, retiring the first two batters. Houston then got a rally going, with a walk and a single putting two men on base. With Povich’s pitch count at 96 despite only having gotten one out in the fifth, the Orioles went into the bullpen and brought in Yennier Cano. Basic problem: Cano is not good this year. August 22 did not prove to be an exception. Cano took two pitches to serve up a tater to former Oriole Christian Walker. Back to a four-run gap at 7-3.
The offense kept scrapping. In the sixth, the bottom of the Orioles lineup loaded the bases with no one out. They scored two runs in the least impressive way possible, on a pair of RBI groundouts. Hey, it’s better than nothing. The Orioles got within a run (again) in the seventh after Cowser hit his tenth home run of the season.
That did not last either. The Orioles had Matt Bowman close out the seventh and left him in to start the eighth. Bowman has already been designated for assignment by the Orioles this season for not being good enough, but due to all the trades and injuries, he’s back. He’s still bad. There were men on second and third with no one out. Corbin Martin entered to try to limit the damage. He didn’t, letting both of those inherited runners score before allowing one of his own to cross the plate. The ERAs of Orioles pitchers used tonight, after what happened in this game:
- Povich – 5.13
- Cano – 5.56
- Kade Strowd – 2.03 (good job, seriously)
- Bowman – 6.20
- Martin – 5.65
It’s bad! It’s hard to win when you give up ten runs. It’s hard to win when two errors lead to two unearned runs.
Ahead of Friday’s game, the Orioles selected the contract of infielder Vimael Machín as Jordan Westburg landed on the injured list with an ankle sprain. The 31-year-old Machín has been a fun story at Triple-A this season, OPSing .814 across 107 games. In late August, he’s gotten his chance to return to MLB. He swung at the first pitch he saw and it went over the fence in center field. A hitting Machín!
Despite getting three singles in the eighth inning after this, the Orioles did not score any more runs. Jackson hitting into a double play in the middle of it interrupted the potential fun. Cowser striking out with two men on and two out ended the potential fun. In the ninth, Mayo was hit by a pitch to start out. That looked like it was going to leave a mark. Beavers, Basallo, and Machín struck out to end the game. Laz Diaz made some contributions again, but also, the young and/or inexperienced guys got worked over a bit.
They’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe it will go better. Dean Kremer is set to start for the Orioles. He’ll be trying to continue what’s been an excellent August. The Astros scheduled starter is Cristian Javier.
