Kjerstad’s slam leads Orioles to 6-5 win, sole possession of first place

In front of a sellout crowd, the O’s set a franchise record for homers in a month, Cade Povich earned his first win, and the bullpen held on by the skin of its teeth against Texas.

On an electric night at Camden Yards, the Orioles delivered one of their most thrilling wins of the year, a 6-5 roller coaster against the Rangers that featured a little bit of everything. The O’s set a franchise record for home runs in a month. Cade Povich earned his first major league win; Craig Kimbrel notched his 436th major league save. The O’s bullpen survived a white-knuckle ride in the late innings and Heston Kjerstad brought a sellout crowd to its feet with a mic-dropping grand slam that turned the game around in the fifth. When the smoke cleared, the Orioles were in sole possession of first place in the AL East, overtaking the Yankees after their loss in Toronto earlier in the day.

The 2024 Orioles, you guys. They’re simply a delight.

With a raucous crowd of 44,286 on hand for Hawaiian Shirt Night, the Orioles would’ve loved to treat the home fans to a runaway victory from the get-go, but they were playing from behind almost immediately. The second batter of the game, Corey Seager, jumped on a hanging 3-2 sweeper from O’s starter Cade Povich and crushed it deep over the right-field wall, a shot that would have landed on Eutaw Street had it not deflected off a flag pole. Nineteen innings into the series, the Rangers had their first lead.

The Rangers had traffic on the bases in four of the five innings that Povich worked, but he minimized the damage. As the Fox broadcast pointed out, the majority of the Rangers’ hits came on Povich breaking balls; the Seager homer on a sweeper, two doubles and a single on a curve, and in the fifth, a fat changeup that Derek Hill powered into the Orioles bullpen for a solo homer.

Despite those few bad pitches, though, Povich pitched well in his fifth major league start. The two solo homers were the only runs he allowed in his five innings. He struck out three and — most impressively — he didn’t issue a single walk. That’s a great sign from a guy who struggled with his control in the minors and in some of his previous MLB starts. If Povich can throw strikes consistently, he has every chance of remaining an important part of the O’s rotation for the rest of the season and beyond.

Meanwhile, the Orioles made a bit of history in the bottom of the second inning. Actually, several bits of history. Anthony Santander led off the inning by swatting a home run into the bleachers against Rangers starter Michael Lorenzen, bringing the Camden Yards crowd to its feet for the first time. That marked Santander’s eye-popping 13th home run of the month, the most ever by an O’s batter in June.

It also was the Orioles’ 59th homer of June, setting a franchise record for dingers in a single month, topping the previous best of 58 in May 1987. The 2024 Orioles are very good at hitting home runs, folks! And you haven’t seen the last of ’em tonight.

As the game headed to the bottom of the fifth, the Orioles trailed, 2-1, and the enormous crowd at Oriole Park was itching for something to go crazy about. Oh, just you wait. Gunnar Henderson, celebrating his 23rd birthday, lashed a hit into center field and legged it into a double — extending his on-base streak to 36 games — but was at risk of being stranded as Lorenzen picked up two outs.

Then came the awesomeness. Lorenzen battled his control, issuing back-to-back walks to Ryan O’Hearn and Santander to load the bases. Up stepped Heston Kjerstad, making his fourth start in six days since being recalled (for comparison’s sake, he had only four starts in 20 days in his previous stint with the Birds this year). I’d say he’s making the most of his increased opportunities, especially considering what happened next.

After Lorenzen threw a pair of four-seamers to run the count to 1-1, he turned to a cutter. Kjerstad was ready for it. The lefty lofted a fly ball to center field that, off the bat, looked like it would stay in the ballpark. But the ball kept carrying. And carrying. The center fielder Hill gave a frantic leap at the wall but came up empty, the ball soaring into the first row of the bleachers. Grand slam, Heston Kjerstad!!!

The biggest hit of Kjerstad’s major league career gave the Orioles a 5-2 lead and brought a standing ovation from the exuberant O’s fans, whom Kjerstad acknowledged with a curtain call between innings. What a great moment for a kid who had to overcome plenty of obstacles just to make it to the majors. How can you keep him out of the lineup at this point? But at the same time…who do you bench to make room for him? I guess that’s one of those good problems to have.

The Orioles had a three-run lead, and it turned out they would need every single one of those runs, because their bullpen is…uh…not great. It took the Rangers just one inning to whittle that lead back to one, as Nathaniel Lowe bashed a two-run homer off Bryan Baker in the sixth. Baker has mostly been solid since the O’s called him up three weeks ago, but based on his past history, he was due for a blowup. Sure enough.

The most impressive performance from an O’s reliever tonight came from the guy I was probably least excited to see, Yennier Cano. It’s been a rough go of late for the Orioles’ 2023 All-Star, including a lamentable outing last night in which he threw 10 straight balls, but he got back on track in a big way here. Cano mowed through the Rangers in perfect order, getting two groundouts and a strikeout.

The Orioles gave themselves some breathing room in the seventh on Santander’s RBI double that made it 6-4. Once again, that extra run proved extremely valuable, because Texas responded with an Adolis Garcia dinger off Jacob Webb in the eighth. Later that inning, they put the tying and go-ahead runs on base for Jonah Heim, who gave Orioles fans a collective heart attack by driving a 384-foot fly ball to center off Cionel Pérez. But Cedric Mullins tracked it down just in front of the wall for a long but harmless third out. Exhale.

Wait, no, inhale again, because Craig Kimbrel is coming into a one-run save situation for the second straight game. He’d been 0-for-4 in his first four save attempts with a one-run lead this year before converting one on Friday night. This one sure wasn’t pretty, either. He walked the leadoff man, Leody Taveras, on a 3-2 pitch that missed the plate by about eight feet. Taveras predictably stole second base to put the tying run in scoring position with nobody out. It’s never easy, is it?

Kimbrel wobbled but never fell off the tightrope. A Marcus Semien fly to left and a Davis Wendzel sharp liner to second put the O’s an out away from victory. Kimbrel delayed the fans’ gratification by walking Josh Smith, once again putting the tying and go-ahead runs on base for the powerful García, but a harmless pop fly to right ended the game and cued the fireworks as the crowd celebrated another Orioles win. The save was the 436th of Kimbrel’s career, one shy of Francisco Rodriguez for fourth most in MLB history.

What a game. The Orioles will look to complete the four-game sweep of the defending champions on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball tomorrow. Here’s hoping they put on another great show.