Baltimore beat Toronto 7-4 Friday as Dylan Beavers homered and drove in three runs, helping the Orioles to a needed win as they cling to hopes of the final American League wild-card spot.
Beavers homered off Max Scherzer to right field to lead off the first inning, and the Orioles never trailed.
Baltimore broke the game open with a five-run second inning against Scherzer, who allowed six earned runs on seven hits over five innings and took the loss. Heston Kjerstad's RBI single made it 2-0, Colton Cowser's two-run double pushed the lead to 4-0, and Beavers added a two-run single to make it 6-0 before Toronto answered.
"He's a Hall-of-Famer," Beavers said of Scherzer. "He can really pitch. Our approach today was get him in the zone and get good swings on pitches in the zone. When we're doing that, that's when we're playing our best ball. We've just got to keep it up."
Kazuma Okamoto homered in the fourth and an Andrés Giménez groundout scored a run in the sixth to cut the deficit to 6-2, before Coby Mayo's solo homer in the seventh extended Baltimore's lead to 7-2. A Brett Bateman two-run homer off Alex Hoppe in the ninth accounted for Toronto's final margin.
Beavers finished 2-for-5 with three RBI, while Encarnacion-Strand went 3-for-4 and Cowser added two RBI. Okamoto went 2-for-4 with his 31st homer for Toronto. Chris Bassitt earned the win, allowing two earned runs over five innings with five strikeouts. Rico Garcia recorded the save with a scoreless ninth.
The Orioles, now 72-76, remain 2.5 games back of the final AL wild-card spot.