After a 21-29 start, and with a day off to stew on an embarrassing sweep at Tampa, the Orioles desperately needed a win Friday with the worst team in baseball over the last two weeks coming to town.
It didn’t matter how damp and miserable it was at Camden Yards, because the forecast calls for it all weekend. And it didn’t matter they fell behind early. This 10-game homestand feels like a referendum on their season – it will probably end up largely forgotten in what has the makings of another lost year,- and it go off to a decent start in Baltimore. The O’s outlasted the Tigers (losers of 15 of 17), by a 7-4 margin in a desolate stadium, overcoming more suspect starting pitching along the way.
“Tough environment tonight with the rain and the mud,” Orioles slugger Pete Alonso told Apple TV after the game, “and I’m glad we were able to outlast.”
As usual, some self-inflicted errors upped the degree of difficulty as much as the weather did.
It would require some world-class over-analysis and faux strategy to awaken a Tigers lineup that has been incredibly impotent. Of course, Orioles baseball demagogue Mike Elias was prepared to provide just that, taking a reliver who has been utterly incompetent at getting lefties or righties out and having him start the game. So lefty Keegan Akin, the opener, promptly served up a home run on his first pitch to rookie Kevin McGonigle, from the left side.
Bold strategy, Cotton. (As was inserting Tyler O’Neill, who cannot hit, as a pinch hitter and then having him in right field on a soggy night in a close game when he cannot defend at all on a perfect night. They were damn lucky to get away with both).
Yeah, the opener thing worked for bulk man Chris Bassitt, a horrendous signing to bolster a fallacy of a starting rotation at $18.5M, last time out. But Bassitt’s entire arsenal has been bludgeoned all season (his two-seamer is the worst in baseball) and he couldn’t hold down the Tigers long Friday despite it being a frigid (50 degrees in late May) and rainy.
The Tigers, mind you, entered the game with six straight losses scoring two or less in five of them. They are 29th in runs scored per game and had scored three or less in 12 of their last 14 games … And Bassitt could only provide 13 outs (allowing six hits and three earned; now with a bloated ERA of 5.51) before getting yanked for leverage reliver Rico Garcia with a runner on second in the sixth.
When Alonso provided a lead with a three-run, opposite field homer in the third, of course there was no shutdown inning; there almost never is with this bunch. Bassitt got worked twice by the bottom of this punch-less Tigers lineup, with No. 9 hitter Hao-Yu Lee driving in runs off him in separate at bats; his swinging bunt single putting Detroit up, 4-3, in the middle of the fourth.
Luckily for the Orioles, they were facing a starter even worse than Bassitt, former Orioles trade-deadline mistake Jack Flaherty. Flaherty entered the game in the bottom two percent of all starters in breaking ball run value and was getting no chase and walking as many batters as anyone in MLB.
So of course he struck out five of the first six he faced. But Alonso took him deep early and Flaherty balked in another run and then Jackson Holliday, just back from a season-long broken hand, pushed a ball 337 down the left field line, just under the foul pole for a two-run homer and 6-4 lead in the bottom of the fourth.
“It’s really awesome for us to get him back,” Alonso said. “He’s such a talented kid.”
That was going to be enough against this Detroit outfit.
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