The Orioles’ offense couldn’t keep pace with the Giants’ on Friday night, but their 8 runs were nothing to sneeze at. They worked veteran Robbie Ray early yesterday and kicked it into another gear against rookie Carson Seymour on Saturday. The right-hander’s day was done by the end of the 3rd. Relief from the Baltimore offense came in name only from Tristan Beck and Matt Gage.
Out scored 11-1, out hit 13-5 — the game was a spankin’, an exposé of youth, while San Francisco’s accelerating offense ran into
a wall named Trevor Rogers.
Baltimore’s T. Rogers (same initials, no relation to the twins) owned a miniscule 1.40 ERA over 13 starts. He hadn’t allowed more than a single run in each of his last six games. The last time he gave up more than two runs in a start was on June 18, his second appearance of the year. Coming into San Francisco, Rogers had completed 6 or more innings in 11 of his 13 outings. Opponents are batting just .173 and slugging .236 against his four-seamer. They don’t fare much better off the offspeed, or any of his other offerings really.
Rogers has spent the summer laying waste to contending teams. The Cubs, Phillies, Mariners, Red Sox, and Astros, in August alone, couldn’t cause him to break a sweat, let alone force him off the mound. San Francisco might not have the postseason standing of those teams, but they’ve been as hot as any. In a collision of streaks — a clicking line-up on 6 win run against a dominant arm carving up opponents — someone had to give, and Rogers made it clear pretty early on that it wasn’t going to be him. He cruised through 7 innings, giving up just one run on 5 hits and 0 walks while striking out 5 — a pitching line good for a 10th consecutive start in which Rogers logged 6+ innings while surrendering 2 runs or less, an Orioles franchise record.
The southpaw’s only blemish came on a solo shot to Willy Adames in the 1st. It wasn’t a bad pitch — a belt-high four seamer — a location that had given Adames and his extreme uppercut fits for most of the season. But recently, the shortstop has started getting the barrel to that elevation.
In an 0-1 count, Adames guessed heat and got his bat to it.
I would’ve bet my entire banking account at the All-Star Break that the Giants 30 HR drought would last another year. At the time, Heliot Ramos led the team with 14 homers. I didn’t even mention Adames in my brief check-in who had hit just 12. Two weeks ago in mid-August, Adames had yet to crack 20. Then he turned into a spud gun, a tater launcher with 7 since. 35% of his hits have flown over the wall in that time.
Guess who the last Giant to reach 25 homers before September 1st was.
It was just the third homer Rogers had surrendered over 90 innings pitched — but the shot didn’t shock him into submission. He shrugged off the drive and as afternoon shadows crept across the home, casting the batter’s box in darkness, Rogers settled in.
Whatever hope or possibility a one out error and single by Ramos sowed in the 3rd was quickly snuffed out. Rafael Devers went down on a sweeper, and he dispatched Adames on three straight change-ups.
The Giants bottom of the order set up something again in the 5th. Jung Hoo Lee ran into some bad luck with a hard-hit liner that found Jackson Holiday’s glove at second, but Matos and Knizner linked together two singles to turn over the order. Runners on, the big boys up, and Rogers buckled down, getting Ramos to foul out before Devers rolled a harmless grounder to first.
Viable scoring opportunities were few and far between, and when they did come around, the Giants went hitless.
Carson Seymour, in debut MLB start, looked somewhat promising his first time through the Orioles order. He worked around a leadoff walk and error with some signature sinkers that coaxed key groundballs in the 1st. He stranded a leadoff double from Colton Cowser in the 2nd with help of a poor base running decision.
His second time through the order, Seymour wasn’t as lucky. The Baltimore bats started punishing mistakes in location. Jeremiah Jackson got burned by a sinker in the 1st, but he didn’t miss the next one he saw. His 2-run homer drove in a leadoff walk to number 9 hitter Daniel Johnson and turned the score in the Orioles favor for good.
Two batters later, another poorly located sinker to Ryan Mountcastle with a runner on got rocketed out to deep center. The four run slog in the 3rd meant an early exit for Seymour, who approached 60 pitches by the end of the inning.
Tristan Beck took the reins in the 4th, a move that didn’t impress or phase Baltimore in the slightest. Six pitches into Beck’s afternoon, the Orioles had smoked three hits with escalating triple-digit exit velos while plating two runs. Samuel Basallo backspun the first pitch Beck threw over the right field wall. Johnson lined a single, then scored from first on a triple off the bat of Jackson Holliday.
Fast-forward through the next four innings. The Orioles added on again and again. The deficit swelled to double-digits, and Bob Melvin called on Christian Koss to pitch the 9th.
In his fourth pitching appearance, Koss turned in 1-2-3 inning on just 9 pitches: eight 45 MPH eephus-i and one sneaky 85 MPH fastball that couldn’t find the edge of the plate in a 2-strike count to Coby Mayo. The infielder has yet to give up a run and stopped Saturday’s bleeding to a sarcastic chorus of cheers.
