After having fun with a festive scene earlier than the sport, the Orioles got here up empty on too many at-bats with runners on base in shedding their American League Division Series opener, 3-2, to the Texas Rangers.
Here are 5 issues we realized from the sport.
Baltimore’s reunion with postseason baseball went from festive to tense in a rush
Playoff baseball returned to Baltimore at 2:16 p.m. Saturday with a 96-mph sinker from Orioles starter Kyle Bradish, fouled off by American League Most Valuable Player candidate Marcus Semien.
Orange-clad followers whipped their orange towels within the air. They bellowed for every Oriole who walked onto the sphere by way of orange carpet. Joan Jett, a fan of the membership since earlier than the final time it received the World Series, sang The Star-Spangled Banner. Bradish felt the bottom shake every time he completed off a hitter. The environment suited the event.
Three hours and 9 minutes later, that festive bliss was changed by somber reckoning with a more durable actuality. The Orioles, having squandered a pointy outing from Bradish and scoring alternatives in every of the final three innings, had been two video games from elimination towards an opponent that received’t cease hitting.
The screws tighten so rapidly in a five-game collection. The Orioles have rebounded from tough days so usually this season that we might name it a behavior, however they haven’t finished it with the potential for a last loss staring them within the face.
Next up is Texas’ ace, Jordan Montgomery, who shut out the Tampa Bay Rays over seven innings Tuesday and hasn’t allowed multiple earned run in any of his previous 5 begins.
The Orioles imagine they may shake off their difficulties as simply as they did the raindrops that delayed Game 1. “I don’t think the moment has ever been too big for this team this season,” supervisor Brandon Hyde stated.
He believes his younger gamers already persevered by an expertise akin to postseason stress as they fought off the Rays to win the AL East.
“We’ll do what we’ve done all year,” Bradish stated. “We don’t get too down.”
That resilient self-image shall be examined like by no means earlier than Sunday.
The Rangers hit effectively sufficient to beat even a prime pitcher who’s on his sport
Bradish completed off a 15-pitch first inning by fanning Texas’ prime lengthy ball menace, Adolis García, with a 97-mph sinker.
His alternative of pitch was telling. Bradish turned the sinker from a minor weapon in his arsenal (4.3% of his pitches in 2022, per FanGraphs) to a serious one in 2023 (21% of his pitches). He grew to become the Orioles’ ace within the course of, a standing few envisioned when Bradish was a part of the 2019 commerce return for ex-phenom Dylan Bundy.
He’s one of many nice participant growth tales in a corporation filled with them.
Almost 40 years to the day after Mike Boddicker struck out 14 Chicago White Sox on his method to a 4-0 victory within the AL Championship Series, Bradish minimize an analogous early tempo towards the slugging Rangers. He throws with extra zip than Boddicker, however his methodology — throwing any of his 5 pitches for a strike on any rely — is comparable sufficient. His sinker, four-seam fastball and slider popped.
Sharp as he was, this Texas lineup, which Rangers supervisor Bruce Bochy known as the most effective he has managed, is sort of not possible to carry down. With one out within the fourth, García ripped a double down the left discipline line, and 21-year-old rookie Evan Carter drove him in with a rocket into the best discipline nook. It appears virtually unfair that the Rangers added a preternaturally mature hitter such because the 21-year-old Carter, at present hotter than the solar, to a core that already included Semien, García and Corey Seager. But they did, and he rapidly scored the sport’s second run on a line drive single to left by catcher Jonah Heim.
“They had two hard-hit balls,” Bradish lamented afterward.
He made some terrific pitches from there, placing out Semien on a curveball with the bases loaded to keep away from additional disaster and placing out two extra with Seager on first within the fifth. But he left the sport trailing 2-1 on a day when he’d fanned 9 and walked only one. That’s life towards the AL’s prime offense.
Bruce Bochy took a threat beginning Andrew Heaney and acquired his desired outcome
Texas’ venerable supervisor might have chosen right-hander Dane Dunning, his most constant beginning pitcher this yr if not his finest. Instead, he went with the feast-or-famine southpaw, Heaney, who’d pitched a horrible sport towards the Orioles in April and a very good one in May.
He didn’t current this as a alternative between proper and left — “They were going to match up,” Bochy stated — although he did preserve Ryan O’Hearn out of the beginning lineup and impose a harder matchup on the Orioles’ most potent hitter, Gunnar Henderson.
“We looked at how well he’s been throwing the ball,” Bochy stated, choosing the only clarification. “He’s our freshest guy.”
He pointed to the 4 1/3 shutout innings Heaney delivered in a must-win sport towards the Seattle Mariners on the penultimate day of the common season.
He wasn’t nearly as good towards the Orioles however gave Bochy what he needed, going through yet another batter than the minimal by three innings.
Hyde stated he “threw the ball well to start the game.”
As quickly as Heaney confirmed a touch of vulnerability within the fourth — an Anthony Santander stroll adopted by Ryan Mountcastle’s RBI double — Bochy turned to Dunning to face Aaron Hicks. This indicated he had deliberate to make use of Heaney and Dunning as a two-headed starter all alongside.
They mixed for five 2/3 innings and handed a result in Texas’ bullpen — ok.
The Orioles want extra good at-bats from their finest hitters
Santander confirmed up, scoring the Orioles’ first run after he drew a stroll within the fourth and drilling a house run into the best discipline bleachers for his or her second.
But Adley Rutschman and Henderson, the gamers anticipated to guide the Orioles for years of competition to return, did little to assist him of their postseason debuts.
Rutschman didn’t make laborious contact in 4 plate appearances.
Henderson, who hit 63 proportion factors decrease towards left-handers than right-handers this season, endured a fair rougher day, placing out twice and coming out in his first three at-bats and getting thrown out on an tried steal after he singled to guide off the ninth.
After Hicks led off the seventh with a stroll, the Orioles managed a weak fly ball to proper discipline and a pair of strikeouts, the second by the highly effective O’Hearn, towards Josh Sborz, a reliever with a 5.50 ERA throughout the common season.
After Austin Hays and Rutschman walked to guide off the eighth, Santander hit right into a double play, and Mountcastle struck out to finish the menace.
It was not simply that they made outs in clutch spots. It was the dearth of stress they placed on a fragile Texas pitching workers.
Afterward, they stated they didn’t see deep flaws of their method. “We went out there and took our at-bats,” Henderson stated when requested if they’d rushed. “The ball doesn’t fall the way you want it to sometimes. It’s just baseball.”
“I had a string of good swings, just not a string of hits,” heart fielder Cedric Mullins stated.
The Rangers don’t appear more likely to cease hitting. If the Orioles don’t reply with persistence and laborious contact, they received’t preserve tempo.
“We’re just not going to — this is a tough team to beat if you score two runs,” Hyde stated. “We didn’t have the offense today. We didn’t create traffic.”
Grayson Rodriguez needed to earn the best to pitch with the season hanging within the stability
When Orioles followers concocted their most optimistic visions for the season, a breakout for Rodriguez, maybe the highest pitching prospect in baseball to start 2023, was key to the narrative.
Reality was harsher. For all his 99 mph fastballs and unsettling changeups, the strapping Texan couldn’t end off main league hitters; he lasted previous the fifth inning as soon as throughout his preliminary run of 10 begins in April and May.
The Orioles dispatched him to Triple-A Norfolk for extra seasoning, a “tough pill to swallow” in Hyde’s phrases. With a playoff berth realistically in attain, they didn’t assume it finest for him to be taught on the job. But what would Rodriguez do with this setback?
Well, he took the suggestions from these 10 begins — main league hitters didn’t care if he threw 100 mph when he couldn’t paint the strike zone — and remodeled himself right into a extra aggressive and extra exact pitcher.
“He went down with an absolute purpose and goal,” Hyde stated.
When Rodriguez rejoined the Orioles in mid-July, he was now not the identical man. Gone had been the meltdowns, changed by six- and seven-inning high quality begins. When the Orioles wanted to bounce again after two losses to the Tampa Bay Rays in a vital September collection, Rodriguez gave them eight shutout innings.
“Whatever adjustment he made when he went down, he’s been a completely different pitcher since he came back up,” Hays stated.
That explains why Hyde didn’t hesitate to pencil Rodriguez in as his Game 2 starter towards the Rangers, figuring out the 23-year-old is perhaps in place to tug the Orioles out of a gap.
Rodriguez coveted the accountability. The considered going through the Rangers’ MVP-caliber hitters exhilarates him. “This feels like normal baseball to me,” he stated.
ALDS, Game 2
Rangers at Orioles
Sunday, 4:07 p.m.
TV: FS1
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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Source: www.bostonherald.com