The Orioles got exactly what they needed from Brandon Young and just enough offense in the 10th to survive another tight one, beating the Athletics 4-3 on Tuesday night at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento.
That win kept Baltimore hanging around the edge of the Wild Card chase, and it came with a reminder that Young may have hit a rough patch lately, but he still had a big outing in him. The former undrafted free agent, working through his first full big-league season after never piling up heavy innings in the minors, had been laboring through recent starts. He’d been leaving early, struggling with his mechanics, and having a harder time finding the strike zone with his fastballs than he did earlier in the year.
None of that showed up much against an Athletics team dealing with injuries and playing in a minor league ballpark. Young went seven innings, allowed five hits and one walk, and spent most of the night keeping the A’s off balance. He rarely fell into three-ball counts, the leadoff hitters never really got going, and Baltimore got the kind of start it desperately needed from a rotation arm.
Young still didn’t factor into the decision, though. The Orioles had to wait until extra innings to finish the job, and Coby Mayo delivered the key swing. With two outs in the 10th and the zombie runner on base, Mayo punched a run-scoring single off a lefty, with some help from right fielder Lawrence Butler, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand added another single as Baltimore pulled out the 4-3 win.
“Coming through in extra innings, I didn’t try to do to much,” Mayo said on the MASN postgame show. “I got a fastball and just tried to hit it.”
Baltimore also got Blaze Alexander back for the first time since before the All-Star break after his broken hand, and he went right back into the lineup at shortstop and leadoff. Gunnar Henderson sat, still mired in a slump that has him hitting .200 since July. Alexander reached base once, but the Orioles’ early offensive chance against Jacob Lopez never turned into a real breakthrough.
They scratched out two runs in the second after putting two on with two outs. Dylan Beavers knocked in one with a hit, and Carlos Narvaez benefited from a strange collision running down the line with Lopez that let another run score. But then Beavers made a costly mistake, running through a stop sign after Alexander’s single and getting thrown out at the plate by 20 feet.
Baltimore had two more baserunners in the third, but Lopez settled in from there and shut the door. He got Leody Taveras to end the inning, kept Pete Alonso quiet, and left the Orioles stuck on the margins offensively until the late innings.
Baltimore managed only one more hit before extra innings, even as Young kept dealing. The right-hander had allowed 31 hits over 25 2/3 innings in his previous five starts and carried a 6.55 Fielding Independent Pitching mark into this one, but he looked much sharper here.
He stayed out of trouble by getting ahead, kept the pitch count under control, and worked the ball down in a park where fly balls can become problems. Only three of his outs came on fly balls.
The lone blemish was a solo homer by former Orioles farmhand Jonah Heim. Later, in the eighth, Rico Garcia gave the lead away.
He put the leadoff man on with a two-strike pitch, then made things worse with a single, and a sacrifice bunt moved the runners to second and third before Lawrence Butler singled to left to drive in a run. Beavers then erased Jeff McNeil at the plate to keep Baltimore alive, setting up the extra-inning finish.
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