The Orioles had a night that felt like it was slipping away early, then briefly seemed salvageable, then got shoved right back into the loss column.
Cleveland scored in each of the first three innings and built a 6-0 lead before Baltimore even had a hit, but the game tightened enough to make the ending sting. Three unearned runs against Alex Hoppe in the seventh ended the rally for good, and the Guardians left Camden Yards with a 9-5 win before an announced crowd of 13,279.
Baltimore is now 70-76 and has dropped seven of its last eight. The Orioles are four games behind Cleveland again for the final Wild Card spot, and they also lost the season series, which gives the Guardians the tie-breaker. The series wraps up Wednesday night, then the Orioles get an off-day before heading to Toronto for three games.
Brandon Young was the starter who never found his footing. He came in having thrown back-to-back quality starts, but this one turned rough fast.
Cleveland’s first run came on Steven Kwan’s fly ball and Jackson Holliday’s two-out single in the first, then the second inning snowballed: Ángel Martínez tripled, Patrick Bailey and Petey Halpin singled, Brayan Rocchio bunted, Kwan’s grounder brought home a run at the plate, and Travis Bazzana launched a four-seamer into the right-field seats. Petey Halpin added an RBI single in the third, and Young was out after 3 2/3 innings with a season-high six earned runs allowed.
He matched his shortest outing, walked two, struck out two, threw a wild pitch and hit a batter.
The Guardians were already ahead 2-0 when Bazzana struck in the second, and the ball left the bat loud enough to tell the whole story. Young had no answer after that.
Baltimore finally got on the board in the fourth. Jackson Holliday doubled to start the inning, Pete Alonso singled and Coby Mayo walked, then Holliday scored on Samuel Basallo’s grounder. Dylan Beavers followed with a first-pitch flyout, and the Orioles still had not fully broken through.
Then Alonso changed the tone with one swing in the fifth. His 34th homer, a two-run shot off Tanner Bibee, cut the deficit to 6-5.
Bibee had opened the night by retiring the first nine hitters on 29 pitches, but the Orioles started to chip away once the lineup turned over. Blaze Alexander and Leody Taveras doubled in the fifth, and Taveras, who had been hitless in his last 19 at-bats, scored on Holliday’s single that was deflected by Nathaniel Lowe and originally ruled an error.
Suddenly the Orioles were within striking distance.
Bibee’s night had flipped from smooth to messy by then. He finished with five runs allowed after that early cruise, and Alonso’s blast came off a cutter that traveled 420 feet to left field at 107.1 mph. Alonso pointed toward the dugout after the swing, and he later had to deal with his own defensive mistake in the seventh.
That inning is where the comeback died. Hoppe came in and immediately put two runners on with a single and a walk.
Nathaniel Lowe struck out, Martínez grounded to Alonso, and Alonso’s throw to second struck Jo Adell on the back of the helmet. Ramírez scored, Adell moved to third, and after a sacrifice bunt and another walk loaded the bases, Rocchio came through with a full-count two-run single to make it 9-5.
Cleveland’s bullpen did the rest. Grant Wolfram retired all four batters he faced, rookie Luis De León worked a scoreless sixth, and four Guardians relievers held Baltimore hitless and scoreless over the final 4 2/3 innings.
There was also an injury scare for the Orioles in the eighth. Gunnar Henderson fouled a ball off his left knee, then stayed in long enough to draw a walk against Hunter Gaddis.
He labored on the way to second base on a ground ball and then left the game. Assistant athletic trainer Ben Fraser checked on him, and Carlos Narváez came in as a pinch-runner and played second base for the first time as a professional, with Holliday shifting to shortstop.
Christian Encarnacion-Strand also replaced Alexander at third base for unknown reasons.
Elsewhere in the organization, High-A Frederick rolled past Greensboro 13-1 in the opener of its best-of-three playoff series. Ty Head, the second-round pick this year, hit his first South Atlantic League homer and added a two-run single, Enddy Azocar hit his first homer on a three-run shot, and Boston Bateman allowed one run and two hits over five innings while striking out 10.
At Double-A Chesapeake, Vance Honeycutt kept rolling with his fourth and fifth homers and his 12th and 13th extra-base hits in 17 games. Ethan Anderson added his 20th homer, a three-run shot in the second, and Aron Estrada hit his 24th.
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