St. Louis beat Baltimore 7-5 Thursday as Blaze Jordan's three-run home run in the second inning gave the Cardinals a lead they never relinquished.
Jordan's blast to center field against Trevor Rogers — which plated Alec Burleson and Joshua Báez — put St. Louis up 3-0 in the second. The Cardinals extended the lead to 5-0 on Ramón Urías's two-run homer in the fourth and pushed it to 6-1 after five.
Baltimore made it a contest with Coby Mayo's three-run shot in the seventh -- his 14th of the season against a lefty -- to cut the deficit to 6-4, and Gunnar Henderson's RBI double in the eighth pulled the Orioles within one at 6-5 but he was later thrown out at third. Nathan Church's run-scoring single in the bottom of the eighth restored a two-run Cardinals cushion, and St. Louis held on from there.
Mayo finished 1-for-4 with a homer and three RBI for Baltimore, while Henderson and Christian Encarnacion-Strand each had two hits. Jordan went 1-for-3 with three RBI for the Cardinals, and Urías added a homer and two RBI.
Rogers took the loss, allowing six earned runs on seven hits across five innings, giving up two home runs, while fanning seven.
“Lately, the homers have been killing me," Rogers said afterward. Of the Jordan long ball, he described the pitch that led to it as “good pitch selection, really bad execution. When you throw a change-up middle-middle, it’s pretty much like a B.P. fastball at that point," Rogers said. "Tip your cap. He hit a bad pitch, and I just got to be better at locating it."
The Cardinals' Luis Gastelum earned the win with 1.1 scoreless innings, and Riley O'Brien closed it out for the save.
The O's crawled back from a 6-1 deficit, but couldn't get out on top.
— Orioles on MASN (@masnOrioles) August 27, 2026
Craig Albernaz after a 7-5 loss in Game 3 against the Cardinals. pic.twitter.com/7sHxwEXeJb
Gordon Graceffo was sharp in his three innings for St. Louis, retiring the Orioles without a hit while striking out four, before giving way to a bullpen that largely held Baltimore's lineup in check until a late surge that ultimately fell short.
Cam Sanders provided two strong innings of relief for Baltimore, striking out four without allowing an earned run. The Orioles (65-69), who won the first two games of the series, are three games back of the final American League wild-card spot as they head to a three-game series against the A's in Sacramento that begins Friday night.
“We’ve been playing some good baseball, just want to keep that up," Mayo said. "You want to win every game possible, because the spot we’re in right now. Losses aren’t great right now. If you win two out of three for a few series in a row... you’re going to make some ground up.” He added, "We did a good job putting up runs this series. We just got to keep that momentum going.”