The Orioles were swept away tonight, ruining every bit of goodwill and excitement they had built up with their series against the Rays last weekend. Tonight’s game, a 6-1 loss to the Yankees, had a little bit of everything bad. The offense could not solve Gerrit Cole. One big error cost the team a couple runs. And Kyle Bradish struggled for his second straight start. It was not an uplifting game, to say the least.
Let’s start with Bradish. He faced just three batters in the first inning, but there
was foreshadowing for the rest of his game. He walked leadoff batter Trent Grisham on six pitches. To make matters worse, Carlos Narváez challenged ball four and lost. On the first batter of the game. Bradish then went 3-2 to Ben Rice, but Rice bailed him out by swinging at ball four and popping out. Heliot Ramos grounded into the first of three Yankees double plays to end the inning.
The third inning was the worst one for Bradish, with an assist to Gunnar Henderson. Back-to-back singles put runners on the corners with no outs. José Caballero hit a groundball to Jackson Holliday, who fired to Henderson to start the double play, but Henderson missed the catch. No outs were recorded and a run scored. The next batter did hit into a double play, but Bradish couldn’t close out the inning. Three batters and three hits later, the Orioles were down 3-0.
Bradish allowed two more baserunners in the fifth inning but was once again saved by a double play ball. He ended the fifth inning with 89 pitches. After his struggles, I thought that might be the end of his night. Unfortunately for him, he went back out for the sixth. He faced four batters and retired two of them. The other two hit home runs. Whoops! He was pulled after the second one. His final pitching line: 5.2 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K. Henderson’s error led to the unearned runs, but Bradish did allow three more hits in the inning after that play. Not great.
The way that the Orioles’ offense played, Bradish could have been a lot better and it wouldn’t have mattered. They looked like they might have something cooking in the first inning with Pete Alonso singled and Gunnar Henderson walked, but they were stranded.
In fact, starting with Samuel Basallo’s strikeout that followed the Henderson walk, Cole retired 11 Orioles in a row. It was not fun. That took him through the end of the fourth inning. Dylan Beavers came up first in the fifth inning and ended the hit drought in style. He took a 97 mph fastball up and into the flag court. It got the Orioles on the board, at the time cutting the lead to 3-1. Cole retired the next three.
The seventh inning was Cole’s last and he ended his outing almost exactly like he started it. After a Holliday strikeout, Alonso and Henderson reached base. Basallo struck out again, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand flew out to end the inning.
Grant Wolfram replaced Bradish and looked good. He retired all four batters he faced on 17 pitches and struck out two. But Albert Suárez wasn’t quite as good. He allowed a run on three hits in the eighth, but pitched a perfect ninth.
Soft-tossing Ryan Yarbrough replaced Cole after six innings, and the Orioles could do nothing with him. They went nine-up, nine-down against him to close out the game. Yarbrough picked up the rare three-inning save for his efforts.
Orioles lose, 6-1. It’s their fourth loss in a row. Tomorrow they being a three-game series with the Rays. They have proven they can beat the Rays this year, so I’d like to sign up for a couple or three wins.
