The O’s had a 7-0 lead with Corbin Burnes on the mound and very nearly let it all slip away. But a win is a win all the same.
Exhale, Orioles fans.
In an absolute roller coaster of a baseball game, the Orioles reached the highest of highs — crushing Royals ace Cole Ragans for seven runs in the second inning — before nearly plummeting to the lowest of lows, frittering away a 7-0 lead piece by piece until the Royals were a base hit away from taking the lead in the seventh. But a porous bullpen recovered long enough to get a few key outs, the offense added a couple of late insurance runs, and the O’s survived with a tense 9-7 victory.
Had it all the way.
Tonight’s pitching matchup certainly wasn’t the kind that you’d expect to devolve into a 16-run slugfest. Corbin Burnes vs. Cole Ragans is the kind of showdown that, on paper, figured to be a dazzling display of pitching artistry. Ace against ace. Two of the game’s best hurlers putting on a show. And while one of the two mostly lived up to the hype, the other one…very much didn’t. Fortunately for the Orioles, Ragans was the latter.
It was just two weeks ago that Ragans dominated the Birds in Baltimore, allowing only one hit in 6.1 shutout innings, and he appeared to be on his way to another fine performance after striking out the side in the first inning tonight. But in the second, everything fell apart for him as the Orioles put together one of their most glorious — and unlikeliest — rallies of the season.
The inning began innocently enough, with Jordan Westburg flicking a single to right on an 0-2 pitch. Still, with the soft underbelly of the lineup coming up next — Austin Hays, Ramón Urías, James McCann, and Jorge Mateo — the chances of an extended rally didn’t seem promising.
Little did we know! Hays lifted a fly to deep right that Hunter Renfroe caught on the warning track, moving Westburg to third. Then Urías, making his first start in 11 days, came through with a big hit, roping a shot inside the third-base line for an RBI double, giving him both his first RBI and his first extra-base hit of the season. Better late than never, I suppose. McCann followed with a single to left-center that plated Urías, making it a 2-0 game. And the O’s were just getting started.
Ragans fanned Mateo for the second out, but he never got a third. One by one, Orioles batters put together great swings against the lefty, swatting five consecutive hits. Gunnar Henderson singled. Adley Rutschman smacked an RBI single. Ryan Mountcastle knuckled one up the middle for an infield hit, bringing home Henderson. Anthony Santander walloped a shot off the left-field wall to drive in another. And finally Westburg — the guy who’d sparked the rally with his leadoff single 20 minutes earlier — made it a 2-for-2 inning by ripping a two-run base hit. When the dust settled, it was 7-0 Orioles.
As Royals manager Matt Quatraro came out to pull Ragans, both men seemed in a daze. And why wouldn’t they be? Nobody could have expected that Ragans — a pitcher who had a 2.46 ERA in 16 starts in his Royals career, and hadn’t given up more than three runs in any outing this year — would suffer such a colossal blowup in a single inning.
And so the Orioles had a 7-0 lead with Corbin Burnes on the mound. Finally, they were on their way to an easy, stress-free victory. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
For Burnes, not much. The O’s ace was his usual brilliant self for the first five innings, retiring 15 of the first 17 batters he faced, with only a harmless two-out single apiece in the first and fourth innings spoiling his perfection. He was rocking. He was cruising. He was knocking ‘em down like bowling pins. And Burnes entered the bottom of the sixth inning still with a huge 7-0 advantage. Again I say: this is going to be such an easy win! Prove me wrong, baseball gods!
BASEBALL GODS: Well, if you insist.
The good vibes started to turn sour in the bottom of the sixth. Burnes struck out two of the first three hitters with a double sandwiched in between, but the third out proved elusive. Vinnie Pasquantino worked a walk on a full-count changeup that just missed the zone, and although Burnes’s pitch count was over 90, Brandon Hyde elected to give his ace one more chance to finish the inning. It was a good idea, but it didn’t work out. Oriole-killer Salvador Perez jumped on a 1-2 sinker and powered it over the left-field wall for a three-run homer. Ugh. With that, the Royals had cut the deficit to 7-3, and Burnes, who’d thrown a shutout through 5.2 innings, didn’t even finish with a quality start. Danny Coulombe got the last out of the sixth.
Once the Orioles’ bullpen got involved, disaster ensued. Despite the O’s adding an insurance run on a passed ball in the top of the seventh, the leaky relief crew nearly frittered away the entire lead in a painful bottom of the inning. Coulombe committed the cardinal sin of walking the leadoff man with a five-run lead, and with one out, Hyde turned to right-hander Yohan Ramírez for his third appearance with the Orioles. Spoiler: it did not go well.
Ramirez was an absolute train wreck on the mound. He spiked his first pitch directly into the dirt in the left-hand batter’s box, where it nailed Adam Frazier’s back foot for a HBP. Ramirez’s second pitch also went straight into the dirt, kicking away into foul territory for a wild pitch that advanced both runners. And his third pitch — you guessed it — was buried in the dirt for another wild pitch, scoring the runner from third to make it 8-4. Woof. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more uncompetitive three-pitch sequence in my life.
Ramirez ended up walking Kyle Isbel on four pitches, but by rule was forced to face one more hitter. That hitter was Maikel Garcia, who laced a single to left field. Frazier scored, but Isbel foolishly tried to advance to third on the play and was cut down by Colton Cowser for a huge second out.
At his earliest possible opportunity, Hyde replaced Ramirez with Yennier Cano, but the normally reliable setup guy had his own troubles. Bobby Witt Jr. reached on an infield single and Pasquantino walked to load the bases. Perez then torched the Orioles again, lashing a single to left-center to bring home two runners. All of a sudden, the Orioles’ once seven-run lead was down to 8-7 with two runners still aboard. Thank goodness for Isbel’s inexplicable out on the bases earlier in the inning, or the game would have been tied.
The tension only mounted when, on what should have been a routine groundout to end the inning, Mountcastle booted the ball to load the bases, putting the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position. At this point I was 100% sure the Orioles were going to lose this game. But credit to Cano — he put the hammer down and struck out Nelson Velázquez to escape the jam with the lead somehow still intact. But would this O’s bullpen be able to get six more outs?
The O’s offense added a much-needed insurance run in the eighth on back-to-back doubles by Mountcastle and Santander. Thankfully, the Royals didn’t come particularly close to closing the gap this time. Forced into unfamiliar eighth-inning duty, Keegan Akin retired two batters before allowing a double, and to my surprise Mike Baumann got the final out without difficulty. That kept it a two-run game for closer Craig Kimbrel, who continued his excellent start to his O’s career by mowing down the Royals 1-2-3 in the ninth, which included a diving catch by Santander to rob Witt of a leadoff hit. The save was the 422nd save of Kimbrel’s career, tying him for seventh in MLB history with his former teammate Billy Wagner.
A win is a win, but man, this one should have come a lot easier than it did. Maybe tomorrow will be the day for a nice, stress-free O’s victory.