The Orioles had a chance to keep rolling after their series opener, but instead they walked out of Coors Field with another messy loss and a familiar problem hanging over them: the offense never showed up long enough to matter.
Baltimore fell 4-2 to the Rockies on Tuesday night, and the defeat came with extra pain. Jackson Holliday’s error helped open the door in the seventh inning, newly promoted Luis De León was tagged for the go-ahead two-run homer in his major league debut, and the Orioles’ loss, paired with Cleveland’s win over Toronto, pushed them 1.5 games behind the Guardians for the third wild card spot.
Kyle Bradish was on the mound, but he never really looked settled. The right-hander has been fighting fatigue lately, carrying a 6.07 ERA across his last six starts, and he didn’t find much relief in the thin air at Coors Field. His command was shaky from the jump, and the ball just didn’t have the usual life.
Bradish needed 20 pitches to survive the first inning after allowing a double and a walk, then got burned in the second. After two quick outs, he missed with an 0-2 pitch to Adael Amador, who sent it out for a homer in just his sixth game of the season.
Zac Veen followed with a blast to right that bounced high off the wall for a triple, and Jake McCarthy added an RBI single to make it 2-0. By the end of the inning, Bradish had already thrown 46 pitches.
To his credit, he settled in from there. Bradish worked through five innings, allowing no more runs, though it was hardly smooth sailing.
He used 19 pitches in the fourth while giving up a double and a walk, then stranded a leadoff single in the fifth before leaving after 95 pitches. His line: six hits, two walks, four strikeouts.
That should have been enough offense support for Baltimore to stay in it. Instead, the bats kept dragging.
The Orioles were facing Gabriel Hughes, who entered with a 6.61 ERA and no major league wins in nine starts, but that didn’t matter much. Again, the lineup made a struggling pitcher look far better than he had any right to look.
Baltimore’s lone run against Hughes came in the third. Carlos Narváez opened the inning with a single, then moved to third on a Pete Alonso one-out hit.
Gunnar Henderson followed with a grounder down the first-base line that TJ Rumfield appeared to grab in foul territory, but umpire John Bacon ruled it fair. Rumfield stepped on first for one out, then caught Alonso in a rundown between first and second, giving Narváez enough time to score before the double play was completed.
Hughes was still in line for the win when the fifth inning got messy. Two walks and a single loaded the bases with two outs, forcing manager Warren Schaeffer to go to the bullpen one out shy of Hughes qualifying for his first major league win. Brennan Bernardino bailed him out by getting Gunnar Henderson to pop up and end the threat.
The Orioles finally made noise in the seventh when Jackson Holliday tied it with a solo homer, a blast in the same ballpark where his father, Matt, hit 93 career home runs. But the high point didn’t last long.
The bottom of the inning started with a Mickey Moniak popup to shallow right, and Holliday simply dropped it. Moniak wound up at second as the go-ahead run with nobody out, and Baltimore was suddenly in trouble again.
That miscue put De León in the spotlight immediately. The 23-year-old left-hander had been called up earlier in the day and was making his major league debut in a tie game, with two lefties due up for Colorado. Craig Albernaz took the shot, and it backfired.
With one out, De León hung a slider to TJ Rumfield, who crushed it into the right-center field seats for a two-run homer. De León did show something, including a sharp slider that struck out Hunter Goodman, but the homer put him in line for the loss in his first big league appearance.
Baltimore never answered. Juan Mejia worked around a two-out Dylan Beavers double and a Samuel Basallo hit-by-pitch in the eighth by striking out Leody Taveras, and Jordan Romano closed it out with a perfect ninth. The Rockies snapped their 10-game home losing streak, and the Orioles slipped back below .500.
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