If tonight was any indication of what this Orioles’ West Coast road trip has in store, then don’t bother staying up late for these games, O’s fans. You’d be better off getting to bed at a reasonable hour and saving yourself the torture.
The Orioles offense failed to show up for their opener in Seattle, going silent for the final eight innings of the game after tallying their lone run in the first, and the bullpen spoiled another strong Brandon Young effort in a 3-1 loss to the Mariners. It was once again a winnable game that the O’s simply failed to take. New coast, same old story.
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When the Orioles last faced Mariners starter Logan Gilbert precisely one week earlier, they made him labor through a long first inning, took a 1-0 lead, and proceeded to get shut down for the rest of his outing. Would you believe that exactly the same scenario played out again tonight? … Oh, you would? Because the Orioles always make the same mistakes over and over again without ever correcting them? Yeah. Well, good call.
Indeed, once again the O’s started off hot against Gilbert and then completely disappeared. Taylor Ward led off the game with a shot to deep left that he thought was a homer, breaking late out of the batter’s box, and instead settled for a double when the ball stayed in play. He nearly was left stranded on the bases when Gilbert retired Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman, but Pete Alonso kept the inning alive with a walk and Samuel Basallo smoked an RBI single to right to give the Orioles a quick lead.
Gilbert stranded the remaining two runners by striking out Leody Taveras, and from then on, he was brilliant. Or the Orioles’ offense was atrocious. Probably a little of both. Starting with Taveras, Gilbert mowed down 16 consecutive Orioles batters. SIXTEEN! I know this guy is a good pitcher and all, but good lord, Orioles. These weren’t even competitive at-bats.
Each inning was more embarrassing than the last. In the second, Colton Cowser and Jackson Holliday received six fastballs basically down the middle and failed to make contact with any of them, both striking out. The next inning, Gilbert retired three batters on just eight pitches, and the inning after that, he struck out the side. The fifth and sixth frames were similarly spotless.
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Considering the Orioles’ pathetic offensive effort, you’d figure they were losing big by the late innings. But fortunately they were kept afloat by their secret weapon: Brandon Young. The Orioles entered the game with a 9-1 record in Young’s starts this year, and tonight the second-year sensation nearly matched Gilbert’s excellence. Through six innings he held the Mariners lineup — boosted by the pre-game activations of Cal Raleigh and J.P. Crawford from the IL — to just one run.
Young delivered his latest quality start despite some uncharacteristic wildness. He issued a career-high four walks in the game, and one of them came back to haunt him in the third, when Miles Mastrobuoni reached on a free pass and later scored on a two-out RBI single by Julio Rodríguez. Aside from that, though, Young made some big pitches to strand a lot of Mariners traffic on the bases.
Before you knew it, we were in the seventh inning in a 1-1 game, but that’s where Gilbert and Young took divergent paths. Gilbert snapped his 16-consecutive-outs streak by drilling Alonso’s leg on a 1-2 splitter, but he had no problem stranding the runner, retiring Basallo on a first-pitch foulout and fanning Taveras and Cowser. Young, on the other hand, allowed the first two Mariners to reach in the bottom of the seventh on a pair of singles, and he could go no further. Craig Albernaz went to the bullpen for lefty Grant Wolfram, ending Young’s night after 92 pitches.
In a surprise to nobody, Wolfram failed to get out of the jam. A one-out walk loaded the bases for the returning Raleigh, who laced a two-run single to center. With that, the Mariners had a 3-1 lead, and Young’s otherwise strong night had been sullied by Wolfram’s inability to strand his inherited runners. Andrew Kittredge replaced Wolfram and induced an inning-ending double play, but the damage had been done.
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Is there any chance the Orioles’ offense suddenly showed signs of life and rallied for a late comeback? No, my friends, they did not. Even when Gilbert left the game after seven innings, the Birds’ bats were no less pitiful. Eduard Bazardo, a blink-and-you-missed-him former Oriole, mowed down all three batters he faced in the eighth, and Andrés Muñoz — who’s been one of the majors’ worst closers this season — nevertheless had no problem blanking the O’s in an easy ninth. And a lackluster Orioles loss was in the books.
We’re one game into a road trip that has the chance to make or break the Orioles’ season. Based on early returns, I’m leaning towards the latter.
