The Orioles returned to Oriole Park at Camden Yards with a series win against the Texas Rangers and high hopes for a season filled with expectations.
After taking the home opener by a score of 7-6, the Orioles dropped the final two games against the New York Yankees by a score of 4-1 and 4-0, respectively.
Each starting pitcher for the O’s gave up at least three earned runs in this series. Tyler Wells was the only starter who pitched more than five innings.
Dean Kremer tossed five innings on the home opener, giving up four earned runs. However, the O’s offense was alive, scoring seven runs on the day that led to the victory.
Adley Rutschman would tie the game at five in the sixth with a base hit to left, and Ramón Urías would give the O’s the lead with an RBI double and later score a run on a wild pitch.
Ryan Mountcastle, Gunnar Henderson, Adam Frazier and Austin Hays all had one RBI each. Cionel Pérez got the win out of the pen, and Félix Bautista picked up his third save in the O’s 7-6 victory.
Game two was a whole different story, as an Anthony Santander RBI sacrifice fly would be the only run scored for the Birds in a 4-1 loss.
Cole Irvin would pitch 4.2 innings of work, allowing three earned runs. The walks plauged the usually strike-throwing left-hander, as Irvin gave up four of them to five strikeouts on the night.
Austin Voth would pitch two innings of work out of the pen. He would give up a monstrous home run to Giancarlo Stanton but would eventually settle in.
Scoreless appearances from Keegan Akin and Mike Baumann weren’t enough, as the O’s dropped game two.
Game three was all Yankees at the start, even though Tyler Wells had a lot of good and some bad in his outing. The big righty would give up four earned runs, including a solo home run from Aaron Judge and a two-run shot from Franchy Cordero, but would strike out six and walk none in his six innings of work.
The O’s would get some late life in the sixth inning, as Anthony Santander would split the deficit in half with a double hit off Albert Abreu that scored two runs. Those two runs would be credited to Nestor Cortes, who once again made the O’s offense look silly.
Aaron Judge would hit yet another solo shot off Logan Gillaspie in the eighth to make it a 5-2 Yankee lead, but Adley Rutschman visited Eutaw Street with a solo shot of his own in the bottom half.
Rutschman would finish the day 4-for-4, but it wasn’t enough, as the O’s dropped game three by a score of 5-3. After losing the series, the Orioles are now 4-5 on the season.
BATTERY ❌️-FACTOR
The BATTERY ❌️-FACTOR for this home-opening series was the O’s bullpen.
The pen pitched a total of 11.2 innings, with every member pitching in the series at some point. To say the bullpen was impressive would be an understatement.
O’s relievers only gave up a total of four earned runs in the series on 10 hits. The collective group also struck out 11 Yankee batters to just four walks.
Against a top offensive team like the New York Yankees, the bullpen gave their team a chance to win and stayed in games.
The Orioles will begin a four-game series against the Oakland Athletics tomorrow night, with first pitch scheduled for 6:35 p.m. EST at Camden Yards.
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