The Orioles had a chance to put the finishing touch on a sweep Thursday afternoon, but the St. Louis Cardinals kept that from happening with a 7-5 win in the finale.
Baltimore was in a deep hole early, trailing 5-0 after four innings, then spent the rest of the game chipping away. The Birds finally got on the board in the fifth, only for St.
Louis to answer right back. Baltimore cut the gap to one at 6-5 in the eighth, but the Cardinals added an insurance run in the bottom half and closed it out even after the Orioles pushed a two-out single in the ninth.
Trevor Rogers took the loss, working 5.0 innings and allowing six runs on seven hits. He walked one and struck out seven on 86 pitches, 60 for strikes.
The damage came largely on the long ball. Blaze Jordan launched a three-run homer in the second, and Ramon Urias, now with St.
Louis, added a two-run shot in the fourth. Rogers’ sixth and final run came in the fifth on an Alec Burleson groundout to first with the bases loaded.
Baltimore’s bullpen had a mixed afternoon. Cam Sanders steadied things with 2.0 innings of one-hit, one-walk relief while striking out four. Anthony Nunez later allowed a two-out walk to Urias, who stole second and came around on a Nathan Church RBI single for the Cardinals’ eighth-inning cushion.
The Orioles did find some pop of their own. Colton Cowser’s sacrifice fly brought home Christian Encarnacion-Strand in the fifth, and Coby Mayo kept the pressure on with a three-run homer in the seventh, his 18th of the season. That blast traveled 446 feet to center field and left the bat at 111.2 mph.
Baltimore made one more push in the eighth when Jackson Holliday singled, stole second, and scored on Gunnar Henderson’s RBI double. But that rally wasn’t enough to erase the early damage.
Even without the same offensive fireworks seen in the first two games of the series, the Orioles still came away with a strong showing overall. They outscored the Cardinals 26-15 and piled up 36 hits across the series.
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