The Orioles’ pitching has been surprisingly sturdy to start out this season. Their hitting, it appears, is starting to show round. The membership’s fielding, although, stays a piece in progress.
A pair of poor defensive innings price Baltimore in a 6-4 loss to the Kansas City Royals to open Sunday’s doubleheader after two straight video games have been postponed due to rain. Half of the Royals’ runs have been unearned.
The first of these got here within the fifth. With the sport tied at 1, third baseman Bobby Witt Jr. — making his first look at Camden Yards after the Orioles handed on him with the primary choose of the 2019 draft — singled exhausting into left area. Kyle Isbel adopted with a floor ball to the fitting facet, however a rangy seize and spinning throw from second baseman Rougned Odor was wasted when beginning pitcher Jordan Lyles was unable to maintain his foot on first base. He virtually made up for it by producing one other grounder, however first baseman Ryan Mountcastle’s throw to second hit Isbel’s helmet, recording no outs and permitting Witt to attain and Isbel to maneuver to 3rd. He got here dwelling on Andrew Benintendi’s sacrifice fly.
Lyles had not allowed one other run when he exited within the eighth, changing into the primary Orioles (10-17) starter to report an out in that body since John Means’ no-hitter towards the Seattle Mariners simply greater than a 12 months in the past. But Jorge López allowed the runner he inherited from Lyles to attain, tying the sport at 4.
López returned for the ninth and recorded the body’s first two outs earlier than Odor mishandled a Nicky Lopez floor ball. Lopez then took third when López made an errant pickoff throw, scoring simply on Michael A. Taylor’s single to left. Two extra hits adopted to double Kansas City’s lead.
A bloop and a blast
About 200 toes separated how far the Orioles’ two most important hits traveled. Their outcomes have been the identical.
Mountcastle, who earlier this homestand turned the primary hitter to clear Camden Yards’ deeper and taller left area wall, almost did so a second time within the fifth inning of Sunday’s opener. With Baltimore trailing 3-1, he hammered Zack Greinke’s 65 mph curveball to left area at 104.6 mph, a ball that in previous seasons would have been destined to tie the sport. Instead, it pounded into the highest of the wall, returning to play and forcing Mountcastle to accept a one-run double as a substitute of a two-run dwelling run on successful with a projected distance of 407 toes, in keeping with Baseball Savant.
Both Trey Mancini and Benintendi additionally hit balls that seemingly would have been dwelling runs with the outdated dimensions.
Mountcastle stored the ball nearer to the bottom his subsequent at-bat within the seventh, following Austin Hays’ two-out stroll with a single into heart area; each Mountcastle and Hays completed with 4 hits. Odor then dropped a looping double into left area to attain each runners, with Collin Snider’s 0-1 slider leaving Odor’s bat at 71.2 mph and touchdown 206 toes away. As Odor reached third after advancing to 3rd on the play, he threw an imaginary grenade towards the Orioles’ dugout.
All 4 of the Orioles’ runs got here on doubles, with Cedric Mullins’ computerized one over the fence in right-center area plating their first run within the second inning.
Around the horn
- Right-hander Travis Lakins Sr., optioned after Thursday’s sport, was the Orioles’ twenty seventh man for the doubleheader.
- Left-hander Logan Allen, claimed on waivers from Cleveland, will initially work out of the Orioles’ bullpen, supervisor Brandon Hyde mentioned. Allen mentioned Orioles assistant pitching coach Darren Holmes was one in all his first coaches rising up in North Carolina. “He taught me how to throw a curveball. I’ve thrown the same one ever since.”
- In the primary sport of a seven-inning doubleheader in Bowie, Double-A pitchers Garrett Stallings (six innings) and Morgan McSweeney (one inning) mixed for the eleventh no-hitter in Baysox historical past.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com