Grayson Rodriguez walked off the mound for the final time Wednesday night with the same stoic poise he displayed throughout the game. He had just struck out everyone in a perfect seventh inning, capping one of the right-hander’s best outings of the season.
It came at a time when the Orioles needed just that, a stopper to end a frustrating week.
Rodriguez allowed just two runs in seven innings, holding down a sluggish Baltimore offense. Then Cedric Mullins, the first batter after Rodriguez silenced the Cleveland Guardians, hit a towering home run off Eutaw Street to energize the announced 17,965 at Camden Yards and give the Orioles their first lead of the night.
Baltimore (50-30) ran out of answers during its five-game losing streak, the club’s longest since May 2022. It was the Orioles’ regular contributors who led a 4-2 victory that stopped the streak and brought Baltimore closer. 1 1/2 games behind the New York Yankees for the lead in the American League East Division.
“That was a great start, kind of getting back on track. I had a little setback there in Houston, but he pitched like he did in a couple of appearances before that,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “I thought he was executing well, getting ahead of hitters. Just a couple solo home runs. Other than that, there was not a lot of traffic and an outstanding job for seven innings for us.”
Rodriguez provided much-needed stability to the Orioles’ shaky pitching staff of late. Baltimore’s starters began Wednesday allowing 32 earned runs in their final 39 2/3 innings. That includes Rodriguez’s last outing, in which he allowed seven earned runs in five innings against the Astros.
The pitcher managed to avoid two solo home runs and silence the Cleveland lineup that terrorized the Orioles’ pitching on Tuesday. Guardians first baseman Jhonkensy Noel, in his first career plate appearance after joining the major league team Wednesday morning, recorded his team’s first hit off Rodriguez in the second inning with a 413-foot solo shot into the Baltimore bullpen. Gabriel Arias hit the right-handed shot deep in the fifth inning to put the Guardians back in front.
Rodriguez calmed down after that, pitching perfect sixth and seventh innings to give his offense a chance to advance. Unlike most of his starts, Rodriguez pitched for contact rather than seeking strikeouts. He didn’t record his first strikeout until the sixth inning and finished with just four, his fewest in his last four starts, but he completed seven innings for the second time this season.
“I knew they were going to swing the bat. They are a good two-strike team,” Rodríguez said. “I really wasn’t expecting a lot of strikeouts. Hopefully I was going to use that to my advantage. “We had a good plan.”
Mullins’ seventh MLB season did not start as expected. He fell out of the Orioles’ everyday lineup with a disastrous start to the season, hitting .170 with a .522 OPS on June 8.
Since then, the 2021 All-Star has looked more like his old self. He has two home runs in his last six games, including the second hit of his career at Eutaw Street that put the Orioles on top for good on Wednesday. He cruised to victory batting .321 with a .357 on-base percentage over his final 16 games, second and third on the team, respectively, during that stretch.
“We’ve gotten used to creating a winning culture in the clubhouse,” Mullins said. “So, even with skids like this, it’s a matter of taking one day at a time. I just come out ready to win, prepared to win. When there are some guys that feel down because we’re on this streak, experiencing losing, really losing, definitely keeps a positive outlook on things. Today we were able to turn the situation around.”
Gunnar Henderson drove in the Orioles’ first two runs, extending his on-base streak to 33 games. The shortstop tied the score with his second single in as many innings to bring in Jorge Mateo, who doubled in his first plate appearance and went 2-for-3 on the night. Henderson tied the score again with his 26th home run of the year, the second most in the majors, in the fifth inning.
“I’m running out of things to say about him,” Hyde said. “He’s doing everything.”
After Mullins led off the seventh with the go-ahead shot, Ryan O’Hearn hit his 10th home run of the season to give the Orioles a two-run cushion. Cionel Perez pitched a clean eighth and Craig Kimbrel recorded his 17th save of the season and 434th of his career by striking out everyone in the ninth.
The four runs were all Rodriguez needed to keep his team from losing its sixth straight game. That total wouldn’t have been enough most nights during this recent stretch as the Orioles’ pitching staff struggled, but this was the start they needed — and they missed.
“There were some moments of bad luck for us over the last week,” Rodriguez said. “Just grateful to get the win.”
around the horn
• Dean Kremer will make his third minor league rehab start Thursday with Triple-A Norfolk, Hyde said before the game. The right-hander was uneven in his first two appearances with the Tides, going just 2/3 of an inning and allowing five runs in his second rehab start. That contributed to the decision to keep him down for at least one more start, in which Hyde hopes to see Kremer work deeper into the game.
• Hyde allowed players to arrive at the stadium later than usual on Wednesday, looking for a unique way to end his team’s losing streak. “I wanted the guys… to be able to relax a little bit,” Hyde said. “We do it periodically to keep the guys as fresh as possible.”
Ranger in the Orioles
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