Yankees sweep Orioles, pushing Baltimore to 4-game losing streak

If one has watched the Orioles all season, this is not hard to believe. The extremes over the last week from Baltimore’s baseball team are more norm than outlier. This is who the Orioles have been all year.

Last weekend, after three straight wins against the American League-leading Tampa Bay Rays, the Orioles held sole possession of a wild-card spot that no one seems to want enough to play well consistently.

“It was kind of opposite of the Tampa series we just played,” manager Craig Albernaz said.

On Thursday night, the Orioles are losers of four straight, including this three-game sweep at the hands of the New York Yankees. High to low, low to high, on and on it will go until the games end — the regular-season finale is Sept. 27, for those hoping to skip ahead.

This 6-1 series-ending loss featured an all-too familiar issue early on, as well. The Orioles lead the majors in unearned runs allowed. That count is up to 75 after Gunnar Henderson’s error in the third inning helped elongate right-hander Kyle Bradish’s inning.

When asked why there was such a gap between the level of play in the Tampa Bay series and this New York series, Albernaz said it comes down to a lack of consistency.

“That’s what’s been eluding us all year, just playing consistent baseball,” Albernaz said. “Like, we keep on showing flashes and stretches, and then flashes and stretches the other way. So, for us, it’s just, go out there and play consistent baseball.”

Why is that the case?

“It’s a great question. It’s something that, myself, I’ve been actively trying to problem-solve and put a finger on,” Albernaz said. “Understand, I’m the manager of the team and the guy in charge, and it’s my job to figure that out and I haven’t yet. And that’s on me. That’s the biggest thing. We have to figure out how to keep our guys playing that consistent brand of baseball, and actively trying to figure that out.”

There aren’t many games remaining to figure it out, and the error in the third compounded an inning that was already arduous for Bradish.

Bradish, who wound up requiring 38 pitches to get through the frame, allowed two singles to begin the inning. But then José Caballero hit a ground ball to Jackson Holliday’s left, and the second baseman made a nice stretching play before turning and firing to second.

Instead of a potential double play — even one out would’ve helped — Henderson missed the catch.

“That error hurt a lot,” Albernaz said. “[Bradish] threw a lot more pitches than he should have, and that cascading effect was real.”

The same middle-infield duo turned a double play on Trent Grisham’s subsequent ground ball, but the Yankees added two unearned runs when Ben Rice singled and Heliot Ramos doubled.

That three-run inning gave New York the start of its healthy lead. The Yankees added off Bradish in the sixth with solo home runs from Luis García Jr. and Spencer Jones. The latter of those spelled the end of Bradish’s night.

“I think everybody’s aware that every game matters at this point, so can’t really think about it too much,” Bradish said. “Got to show up tomorrow and win a game, and win a few games. But, yeah, we’ve just got to flush this one. Just a bad series overall. Felt like I let the team down in a big spot today.”

This was only the second time since July 11 that Bradish allowed three earned runs or more. New York added one more run in the eighth off right-hander Albert Suárez when Jazz Chisholm Jr. tripled home García.

Baltimore, meanwhile, was thoroughly outmatched by right-hander Gerrit Cole, who began 22 of his 23 plate appearances with a strike. That’s the highest first-pitch strike rate of Cole’s storied career, according to MLB.com, and he allowed only four hits and one walk while striking out eight batters in six innings.

“We knew it was going to be a low-scoring game,” Albernaz said. “You have to go out there and compete and battle. We just couldn’t get it done, couldn’t get guys on base, and when we did we just couldn’t get the big hit.”

For the second straight night, Dylan Beavers provided offense for the Orioles. He pulled a solo homer off Cole — hitting a homer for the second consecutive game — but there was little else going for the Orioles beyond Pete Alonso setting a career-high 12-game hitting streak.

One aspect of Baltimore’s offensive strategy that was problematic in this series was the inability to reach base safely to begin an inning. Beavers did so with his homer. The Orioles managed that thrice in three games. Along with Beavers’ home run, Jackson Holliday walked to lead off the first inning Wednesday and Leody Taveras hit a single to start the seventh Tuesday.

“We needed to get runners on base,” Albernaz said. “We had a tough time doing that to kind of get the inning going. That was the biggest thing.”

With this loss, Baltimore (61-67) falls to two games back of the final wild-card place. There is time for a run — but if the majority of the season is any indication, the Orioles are more likely to run in place.

This article has been updated.