The Orioles kept putting themselves in position to make something happen Saturday night in Arlington, but the finish never came. Baltimore fell 5-1 to the Texas Rangers for a third straight loss, and the numbers from this skid tell the story: three runs total over 17 hits, plus a brutal 3-for-23 showing with runners in scoring position.
Jackson Holliday gave Baltimore an early jolt, but that was about it. On the 13th pitch of the game, he launched a two-out solo homer to put the Orioles on the board.
Holliday finished 2 for 3 with a double and a walk, and the club’s best chances after that came and went in the middle innings. Baltimore put runners on first and second with two outs in both the sixth and eighth, and another two-out chance with a runner on second in the seventh also slipped away.
The second inning was where the game started tilting hard toward Texas. Ezequiel Duran singled with one out and moved to third when Kyle Bradish threw away a pickoff attempt.
Duran scored on an Evan Carter fielder’s choice to short, then Bradish’s wild pitch advanced Carter into scoring position. Jake Burger followed with a grounder to the left side of the mound that Bradish and Gunnar Henderson couldn’t handle cleanly, and Henderson’s throw home was off target, allowing Carter to score.
Two errors in the inning led directly to two Rangers runs.
Baltimore hung around until the eighth, still trailing just 2-1, but Grant Wolfram issued back-to-back walks with two outs and Corey Seager made it count with a three-run homer to right-center. That broke the game open for good.
Bradish took the loss, but his line was better than the scoreboard suggested. He allowed two runs, only one earned, on five hits over 6.0 innings, striking out four while hitting a batter and throwing a wild pitch. The Orioles’ offense, meanwhile, couldn’t back him up for the second day in a row after another solid starting pitching effort went to waste.
Baltimore then went quietly in the ninth, a three-up, three-down ending to a night that fit the pattern of this current slide.
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Against the Rangers, Alonso gave Baltimore exactly the kind of jolt it has been missing, and he did it with a performance that felt like a small glimpse of what the lineup could become. Even with the seasons frustrations still hanging around, Alonso sounded optimistic about where the Orioles can go from here, a note of confidence that landed at the right time for a fan base that badly needed one. [Read more 🡒]
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What makes the slump sting for Baltimore is that it has started to look less like a temporary dry spell and more like a broader roster issue. The conversation has moved beyond who is hurt and into how the team is building lineups and using its players, which is where the questions get sharper for a club that expected more from its core and its depth. [Read more 🡒]