ST. LOUIS — The streak has come to an end. Officially.
The Orioles lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-4, on Wednesday afternoon and suffered their first regular-season series sweep since May 13-15, 2022. It halted a streak of 106 consecutive series of at least two decisions for the Orioles without being swept, a feat that stands as an American League record and the third-longest in MLB history behind the 1906-1909 Chicago Cubs (115) and the 1942-1944 Cardinals (124).
“It’s been a lot of fun to go that many series without having that feeling of losing all the games in a series,” said outfielder Austin Hays, who has been an everyday player for the Orioles since 2021. “It doesn’t happen very often. Was the third longest ever? So, it’s special to be a part of. I’m glad I was able to experience all that so now we’ll start a new streak next series.”
Though the Orioles (29-18) were swept out of the AL Division Series by the Texas Rangers last October, the streak was still a defining feat for an organization that had risen from perennial AL East basement dwellers to World Series contenders over that span. It took a rain-heavy week in St. Louis with two delays, including a suspended game, in three days for the Orioles to leave a regular-season series without a win.
“We’ve been playing really good baseball for two years and I think we’re disappointed more in how we played this series,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “I think that we’re better than we showed these three games and, yeah, we wanted to keep the streak alive of course. But we got to kind of get back to what — we made mistakes today that we normally haven’t been making and, like I said, we got to start putting some at-bats together to get some rallies started tomorrow.”
Baltimore led 3-0 in the third inning after stringing a few hits together against former Orioles starter Kyle Gibson. The Orioles began Wednesday by finishing up the final 3 1/2 innings of their suspended game from Tuesday night, losing 3-1 while recording only three hits. The Orioles matched that total in the third inning of the finale alone, scoring on RBI singles by Gunnar Henderson and Anthony Santander with Ryan O’Hearn driving in another on a groundout.
John Means pitched three scoreless innings as well to get off to a strong start before the weather struck again, this time forcing the teams to sit through a 1 hour, 25 minute rain delay. Means, whose fastball velocity was down 2 mph from his season average, left the game with elbow soreness after trying to pitch through it.
“He had some elbow discomfort and so he was going to get removed after that inning anyways and he’s going to go get some further tests,” Hyde said. Means declined to speak with the media after the game.
The Orioles then turned to Cole Irvin, who moved to the bullpen over the weekend after Grayson Rodriguez’s return from the injured list. Irvin had a 2.76 ERA heading into the game but wasn’t able to carry over that success in his relief role Wednesday. The left-hander allowed five runs (three earned) over three-plus innings as the Cardinals stormed back to take the lead in the sixth.
St. Louis’ big blow was a Little League home run in which the Orioles recorded two errors to allow Brendan Donovan to come all the way around to score on a two-run double. Donovan hit a line drive into center field that Colton Cowser fielded and threw to Henderson, the cutoff man. Henderson, who had recorded his fourth error of the season earlier in the frame, threw wide of catcher James McCann at home plate and McCann then threw the ball away trying to prevent Donovan from advancing to third.
Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn tacked on an insurance run with a solo homer off Irvin in the seventh to put the game out of reach as St. Louis won its third straight series and improved to 8-2 in its past 10 games. While Irvin wound up with the loss, the Orioles’ offense has sputtered of late; Baltimore has scored three runs or fewer in seven of its past nine games. O’Hearn (.577 OPS over that span entering Wednesday), Santander (.384), Ryan Mountcastle (.083) and Cedric Mullins (.358) have struggled the most among the team’s regular starters.
The Orioles started to put together a rally against Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez, who was looking for his first career save after St. Louis closer Ryan Helsley pitched in the suspended game earlier Wednesday. Hays and Mullins led off the inning with back-to-back singles to put runners on the corners. Pinch hitter Kyle Stowers then hit a deep fly ball to right field and Lars Nootbaar made a leaping catch before throwing the ball back to first base to double up Mullins. Hays scored on the play, but Henderson grounded out to end the game.
“I thought it was gone off the bat,” Hays said. “I think Ced right there thought he had him beat or might have lost the ball there at the last second. He had a good chance to score on that if that ball gets down. So, yeah, I think we put ourselves in a good position and Stowers put a great swing on that ball. Gave us a chance and Nootbaar made a heck of a play.”
The Orioles will look to start a new streak Thursday when they embark on a four-game series against the MLB-worst Chicago White Sox (15-34). Rodriguez is scheduled to start for Baltimore in the opener at Guaranteed Rate Field with Mike Clevinger going for Chicago.
Orioles lose suspended game on Gorman’s improbable swing
After picking up their rain-suspended game from Tuesday night, the Orioles lost to the Cardinals, 3-1, on Wednesday morning as they mustered only three hits.
Play resumed in the bottom of the sixth inning, just over 15 hours after a thunderstorm halted the 1-1 game with Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado due up to lead off the frame. The storm spoiled Kyle Bradish’s chance to pitch into the sixth inning for the first time since he partially tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow this offseason. He needed only 74 pitches to scatter four hits and a walk with six strikeouts over five innings of one-run baseball.
“I think it’s right where I needed to be,” Bradish said Wednesday morning of his command. “I was ahead of a lot of hitters, felt like I was 0-2, 1-2 on most of the guys, which kept the pitch count down, created early contact. So, it was a lot better than the previous three.”
Orioles manager Brandon Hyde turned to Jacob Webb to take the ball for the sixth and he retired the first two batters he faced before Iván Herrera drew a two-out walk. Hyde then went back to the bullpen for Keegan Akin to get a left-on-left matchup with Nolan Gorman, but the second baseman took Akin deep on a 1-2 fastball at the bottom of the strike zone for a go-ahead home run. Gorman had previously hit just five of his 48 career home runs against left-handed pitchers, including only one this season.
“They started with Arenado there and a right-left-right pocket in the sixth inning so we went with Webby,” Hyde said between games. “Unfortunately, a two-out walk and then Akin gives up a homer to a guy hitting [.156] off left-handed pitching and then was good after that. But we had three hits so it’s tough to win when you get three hits.”
The Cardinals felt the effects of the rain delay as well, forcing to cut right-hander Lance Lynn’s start short after he held the Orioles to one run on two hits over six innings. They turned to Andrew Kittredge for the top of the seventh and he retired four of five batters before JoJo Romero and Ryan Helsley combined to close things out.
Baltimore’s lone run of the contest was an RBI double by Jorge Mateo in the fifth before the rain delay. The hit ensured the game was tied in time for it to be considered an official contest once the rain began, but the Orioles were unable to solve the Cardinals’ bullpen any better than they did Lynn.
“They needed to do that also,” Hyde said of the offense having no time to get going with the game starting in the late innings. “We had three hits in the game so we got to start swinging the bat.”
The teams were granted a 27th roster spot for the second game; the Orioles called up reliever Nick Vespi from Triple-A Norfolk to fill that spot and he pitched a scoreless eighth inning for his first MLB appearance of the season.