ARLINGTON - Kyle Bradish reached a big Orioles pitching milestone Saturday night, and he did it faster than anyone in club history.
The right-hander recorded his 500th career strikeout in his 90th game, getting there in fewer outings than any pitcher before him in Baltimore. The strikeout came in the fifth inning on a 94.5 mph fastball that caught Jake Burger looking. Bradish said he didn’t even know it was No. 500 until someone from the Orioles side asked for the ball.
“Hopefully there’s many more to go,” said the 29-year-old righty, who topped Erik Bedard’s previous club mark by seven games.
That keepsake ball will end up with the rest of Bradish’s memorabilia at home, but the milestone came in the middle of a night the Orioles would rather move on from. Baltimore fell 5-1 to the Rangers at Globe Life Field, a loss that left them just short of avoiding a three-game skid.
For much of his five innings, Bradish had the kind of outing that should have kept the Orioles in position to win. He allowed no earned runs, no walks and no extra-base hits. Statcast showed that only three of the 17 batted balls against him were hit harder than 100 mph.
Still, the game tilted early, and Baltimore never got it back.
“The margin for error in this league is pretty much zero,” Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said. “You can't give another big league team, never mind the Texas Rangers, extra outs, an extra 90 feet. It’ll come back and bite you.”
The Orioles’ offense offered little support beyond Jackson Holliday, who was the lone bright spot at the plate. Holliday went 2-for-3 with a first-inning homer and a double. Baltimore finished with six hits and went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position.
“It doesn't matter what our offense is doing, just in general, you just can't allow the extra outs, the extra 90 feet,” Albernaz said. “You're putting more stress and more strain on the guy on the mound in KB, and then the cascading effect through that.”
The second inning was where things started slipping away. Bradish’s pickoff throw went astray, letting Ezequiel Duran move from first to third.
“I thought we had him, I got a little excited, and I just basically threw a slider over to Pete [Alonso] ... not my best,” Bradish said.
A wild pitch to Jake Burger followed, bouncing in front of the plate and creating another opening for Texas.
Then came the play that summed up the night. Burger rolled a slow grounder to Bradish’s right, a ball that came off the bat at only 76.7 mph and carried a .220 hit probability.
Bradish went for the barehanded play and missed. Gunnar Henderson also couldn’t corral it on a barehand attempt.
On the second try, Henderson got the ball and fired home, but the throw was a little wide and a little low. It got to the plate in time, but Carlos Narváez couldn’t hold it long enough to apply the tag on Evan Carter.
“It came off the line a little bit ... it could’ve been a little bit better throw,” said Henderson, who went 0-for-4 out of the leadoff spot. “Baseball sucks sometimes, man.”
Holliday at least had a personal breakthrough in an otherwise frustrating night. Before his homer off Jacob deGrom, he had been 0-for-18 in August after a hot July in which he hit .368/.500/.421.
“It’s the ebbs and flows of the season, but Jackson, we have all the confidence in the world in him,” Albernaz said. “His at-bats, going on for two months now, have been outstanding.”
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