SEATTLE — This hasn’t been the season Cal Raleigh expected, but even during this trying campaign, Orioles manager Craig Albernaz knew the Mariners slugger is a threat to plan around.
Having Raleigh up with the bases loaded against left-hander Grant Wolfram would not have been the ideal plan.
For so much of this pitchers’ duel, right-hander Brandon Young matched Seattle right-hander Logan Gilbert. But when two runners reached base to begin the seventh inning and Albernaz fetched Wolfram from the bullpen, that duel hung on a knife’s edge.
The plan, ideally, was for Wolfram to record outs against the pair of left-handed batters due up. He got one when Miles Mastrobuoni laid down a sacrifice bunt, but Wolfram walked J.P. Crawford to bring Raleigh to the plate with the bases loaded and one out. Raleigh, who was activated off the injured list earlier Tuesday, floated a two-run single into center field.
That knock gave the Mariners a 3-1 lead they held onto for a series-opening victory at T-Mobile Park, and it extends Baltimore’s losing streak to three games.
“I think the biggest thing that hurt that inning was the walk to J.P.,” Albernaz said of the seventh inning. “Once you’re going to walk J.P., with the bases loaded, you’re kind of forced to pitch to Cal there, and didn’t have many options after that.”
Had Wolfram avoided a walk to Crawford, Baltimore could’ve given Raleigh a free pass, then turned to right-hander Andrew Kittredge in a better matchup. Instead, Wolfram had to face Raleigh, and with the Orioles offense sputtering, his hit was enough of a breakthrough for Seattle.
This was the start of a critical nine-game road trip, beginning in Seattle before the Orioles head to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers and Angels. At 34-40 and on the outside looking in at an admittedly weak American League wild-card field, Baltimore’s season very well could hang in the balance during these nine games.
A skid of any sizable amount could render this a lost season — and that’s taking the optimistic view that the current hole Baltimore finds itself in is not insurmountable.
When asked how he and the team must turn the page rapidly, shortstop Gunnar Henderson focused on his own performance. He’s hitting .224 with a .706 on-base-plus-slugging percentage.
“Just speaking for myself, you have to” turn the page, he said. “It’s unbelievably frustrating because I feel like I’m putting in the right work to get the results to show, but they haven’t really shown up. So it’s super frustrating, but it’s just something that happens with baseball. It’s the hardest sport in the world for a reason.”
Henderson shook his head, at a loss when asked why there may be a disconnect between his work and his results.
“I have zero clue,” he said. “I mean, I feel like I’ve been seeing the ball great for about two weeks now. So I don’t know, really, what to tell you.”
That sentiment may be felt by many within the clubhouse as they ponder what went wrong Tuesday, and what has gone wrong for much of the season.
The Orioles immediately grabbed a lead against Gilbert when Taylor Ward doubled off the left-field wall and Samuel Basallo drove a two-out RBI single to right field. But after that, there was next to nothing going offensively — the Orioles finished tied for a season-low three hits, two of which occurred in the first inning before Adley Rutschman’s infield single in the ninth.
Gilbert has a habit of going on these sorts of runs. After his troublesome first inning, the right-hander completely shut down the Orioles. He retired 16 straight batters from the third out of the first inning to the final out of the sixth inning. Then in a two-strike count to begin the seventh, Gilbert hit Pete Alonso on the leg, giving Baltimore its first baserunner since the first inning.
Gilbert stranded Alonso on first. He forced Basallo into a pop out before striking out Leody Taveras and Colton Cowser — Gilbert’s ninth and 10th strikeouts — and walked off the mound to a standing ovation.
“He was really dotting up with the heater,” Albernaz said. “Did a great job with the split and the changeup, and then he threw the slider when needed to, and when he was establishing the fastball and putting it wherever he wanted, it put our guys in swing mode, and that’s when we got that chase.”
The Orioles whiffed at 19 pitches and swung at pitches outside the zone 35% of the time.
Young went toe-to-toe against Gilbert through six innings, allowing a run in the third after he walked a pair of batters and conceded an RBI single to Julio Rodríguez. He walked four batters over six innings but minimized damage, and even though he left the mound with two runners on base in the seventh, Young deserved more from this game. He has been one of Baltimore’s most consistent starters despite beginning the year in the minors.
“Definitely, that’s the goal, to minimize damage and keep them off the barrel, make my pitches when I need to,” Young said. “Kind of got in trouble in the last inning, and then, obviously, the four walks don’t help.”
Young pointed out his low first-pitch strike rate (46%) as an area he must improve going forward. His overall command was shaky, with a 38% in-zone rate. But this was another strong outing from Young, even with two late runs against him and less-than-stellar command.
“B.Y. did more than enough for us to win the game,” Albernaz said. “Kept us in the game. Obviously, runs were at a premium.”
And because they were so hard to come by, the two-run single from Raleigh against Wolfram was enough to edge past Baltimore.
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