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Giving the Boston Red Sox, a team on an improbable run winning 13 in a row and 18 out of 20 entering Monday, a few extra outs and additional opportunities to win wasn’t going to work for the Orioles.
Playing haphazard, low-IQ baseball has come to defined failed baseball executive Mike Elias, who built another unsound roster, and it reared its ugly head all over nine innings of ball in the biggest game of the season. Four Orioles errors had everything to do with a 6-5 defeat at Fenway Park that snapped Baltimore’s seven-game win streak and exposed the depths of their fielding underbelly and reminded them of just how Little League they can look at their worst (so much swing and miss).
In response to this slop, overmatched rookie skipper Craig Albernaz began his post-game comments with ridiculous semantics and making the case for "technically three errors," because I guess that's where his mind goes. He is not a regular-season manager let alone a playoff one.
It was a shameful reminder that The Elias Way is always lurking to remind you of what The Oriole Way once was, and it could become acute given the state of this roster. Their best glove and most dynamic glove, Blaze Alexander, might not play again this season with a broken hand, and both top catchers Adley Rutschman (perpetually hurt and now back in the Injured List) and Samuel Basallo (shoulder) were unavailable.
Elias also loves him some launch angle and chasing power, too, and an Orioles team that leads MLB striking out in 25% of their at bats on the road put on another preposterous display Monday - HYPER, fanning 15 times. That’s after 10 on Sunday and 15 on Saturday and 13 on Friday. Yuck.
The Orioles (49-52; 25-36 vs winning teams) simply reverted to the form that led them as deep as nine games below .500 this season at the worst possible time. And they wasted another strong effort from a starting pitcher (Shane Baz) and blew several leads.
The O’s Scored First
Baltimore grabbed an early lead when mega-slumping Gunnar Henderson decided to avoid pull-side chase and go opposite field again (he’s making a clear effort now and did well off tough lefty Payton Tolle) and Tyler O’Neill drove him in to open the scoring in the 4th. Boston tied it on a sac fly and then the Orioles went in mind-melt mode committing a rapid succession of errors.
Baz was cruising with two outs in the third when Jeremiah Jackson, not a natural second baseman, made a throwing error to extend the inning (he rallied to make some excellent plays and decisions later in the game). Wilyer Abreu doubled to score a run and a horrible throw Henderson, a mess in the field as well with 12 errors already, advanced the runners.
"The one that hurt the worst was the JJ one," Albernaz said, ranking the miscues. "That kept the inning going and they scored a run off that."
Wilson Contreras, a menace at the plate all game, singled to make it 3-1, with two unearned runs running up Baz’s pitch count and denting the scoreboard. Baz ended up going six innings, and walked no one, which helped him survive seven hits.
"Shane did enough to win the game," Albernaz said.
Christian Encarnacion-Strand, promoted from AAA with Alexander out, cleared the Green Monster for his first homer with the Orioles and Jackson tied it in the sixth by getting his hands in on a cutter running in and plopping it over third base. Encarnacion-Strand punched one up the middle for a 4-3 lead in that inning – small ball remaining the way for this compromised roster as it must be.
Once again, that lead wouldn’t last long.
Baz fielded a dribbler and uncorked a throw into the stands to put the leadoff man on second in the 6th - he dropped his arm throwing like "a shortstop," as his skipper notes - and he came around to score. "Got stuck in my glove," Baz told the media. Boston gave the Orioles the lead back by booting a double play ball from O'Neill. but, yeah, that didn't last long, either.
Yennier Cano entered in relief and gave up two singles, enough to tie it at 5 and it could have been worse with Taylor Word launching a totally unnecessary throw that came nowhere near the cut off man and skipped past third-catcher Sam Huff, without Cano backing up. That’s the kind of shoddy ball they played against a team as good and as hot as Boston; that’s not going to work.
The Red Sox grabbed the lead again with a two-out homer from Caleb Durbin in the 8th off Tyler Wells, a ball that traveled just 364 feet, but was more than high enough to clear the wall in left field.
Nearly impenetrable closer Aroldis Chapman walked Colton Cowser (kinda shocked the rookie skipper went with a lefty bat against the nasty lefty, but whatever) and Henderson doubled off the wall, but O’Neill scorched ball was caught at short to end the game.
The Orioles’ season-long win streak was over. Boston’s lives on.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/orioles/onsi as Four Errors And 15 Strikeouts Snap Orioles Win Streak In 6-5 Loss At Boston.
