The Baltimore Orioles had Atlanta on the ropes with two outs and the bases loaded in the ninth inning. They couldn't cash in, and then the tenth inning happened.
Baltimore fell to the Atlanta Braves 7-6 in extra innings Friday night at Camden Yards in front of 35,775 fans, dropping to 50-54 while Atlanta improved to 61-42. A Jackson Holliday error in the tenth opened the door, Matt Olson walked through it with a three-run homer, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand's two-run shot in the bottom half wasn't enough.
“It’s definitely a tough one," Orioles manager Craig Albernaz.
Rogers Was Excellent. The Bullpen Wasn't.
Trevor Rogers gave Baltimore every chance to win this game. Seven innings, two runs, six hits, no walks, six strikeouts. He retired the side in order five times. His streak of five consecutive starts allowing one run or fewer ended in the fourth — a Mauricio Dubón sacrifice fly and an Austin Riley RBI groundball tied it at two — but on most nights, that line wins.
Rogers has a 2.21 ERA in July entering Friday. He pitched like it, as a season-high 81.8% of his pitches were strikes. He threw 88 pitches and could have gone longer, but Albernaz elected to go a "fresh" bullpen, he said after the game.
The trouble started in the eighth. Drake Baldwin, the Atlanta catcher, hit a solo homer to right-center off Rico Garcia to tie the game at three. Tyler Wells was clean in the ninth — a scoreless frame that set up one of the more agonizing sequences of the Orioles' season.
The Ninth
Facing Elieser Hernández — making his first major league appearance in two years — the Orioles loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Dylan Beavers drew a walk, Pete Alonso singled to right and Beavers raced to third, and Gunnar Henderson — 0-for-4 on the night after entering on a four-game hit streak — was intentionally walked.
Taylor Ward worked the count to 3-0, then full. Then he grounded to third.
Austin Riley bobbled it. The ball popped out of his glove, and for a moment the run was going to score. Riley recovered, threw to first, and Ward was out by a step. Game tied, heading to extras.
The Tenth
Jackson Holliday's error changed the game.
Atlanta's automatic runner, Brewer Hicklen, was on second to start the inning. Jim Jarvis hit a liner that Holliday fielded while lunging to his left — then threw over Henderson's head at second trying to retire Joey Bart running from first. "I do like his effort trying to get to second," Albernaz said of Holliday's play. "I just think he didn’t realize how much time he had."
The error scored Hicklen and left two runners on with nobody out. Andrew Kittredge got two outs. Then Matt Olson, on an inside fastball, drove a three-run homer to right-center to make it 7-3. Four runs, four unearned, off Kittredge.
Encarnacion-Strand Makes It Interesting
The Orioles wouldn't go quietly. Tyler O'Neill led off the bottom of the tenth with a single. After Leody Taveras struck out, pinch-hitter Jeremiah Jackson hit a sacrifice fly to left to make it 7-4. Then Encarnacion-Strand — facing lefty Dylan Lee — hit a two-run opposite-field homer to right-center, cutting the lead to 7-6 and bringing the tying run to the plate.
Sam Huff struck out to end it.
Encarnacion-Strand finished 1-for-3 with four RBI, a walk, and two big moments — a two-run double to the left-field corner in the second off Grant Holmes that scored Taveras and Holliday to give Baltimore an early 2-0 lead, and the two-run shot in the tenth that made things briefly interesting. Grant Holmes held Baltimore to two runs through six innings before exiting.
Encarnacion-Strand, recalled from Triple-A Norfolk just last week, is hitting everywhere he's been in an Orioles uniform — his arc from Cincinnati to Norfolk to Camden Yards is worth reading if you haven't. Encarnacion-Strand is 8-for-20 (.400) with 3 home runs, 8 RBIs and a 1.329 OPS in the first five games of his Orioles career.