The Orioles’ seven-game winning streak is over. And it was a heartbreaker. They came up against the buzzsaw of the Boston Red Sox’ 13-game (now 14-game) winning streak and couldn’t do quite enough to overcome it, torpedoing their own chances with a brutal four-error performance in a 6-5 loss.
Tonight marked only the fifth time in the last 65 years that two teams with 7+ game winning streaks squared off against each other, and this game lived up to the billing as a back-and-forth, bare-knuckle brawl. It felt like a playoff atmosphere at Fenway Park as the Orioles and Red Sox exchanged blows throughout the game, each team taking a lead, then losing it, then grabbing it back in a dizzying whirlwind.
What the final result came down to, unfortunately, is the same problem that’s plagued the Orioles all season long: their inability to play fundamentally sound baseball. The O’s committed four errors in this game — and arguably could’ve been charged with a fifth — that handed the Red Sox multiple gift runs. The Birds, for all the heart and grit and energy they showed in this game, could not overcome their lack of defensive competence on this night.
It stinks, because the Orioles really had every opportunity to steal the opener of this series, snap Boston’s winning streak, and extend their own. The Birds could’ve established themselves as a force to be reckoned with. And you can’t say they didn’t try! The O’s offense came up big in the clutch multiple times. Shane Baz threw a gutsy outing against a sizzling Sox lineup. But every time the O’s did something impressive, they’d follow it up by doing something infuriating. Every time they looked like they had the Red Sox on the ropes, they’d let them back into the game through unsightly defensive shenanigans. To paraphrase Dennis Green, the Red Sox are who we thought they were, and we let ’em off the hook.
The Orioles struck the opening salvo in this game with a first-inning run off Sox lefty Payton Tolle, thanks to back-to-back doubles by Gunnar Henderson and Tyler O’Neill. The Red Sox tied it in the second on a pair of singles and a Jarren Duran sac fly against Shane Baz. OK, so far, it’s a pretty crisply played, tightly contested game.
That all changed in a disastrous bottom of the third. After Baz retired the first two batters, he should’ve had the third out on a Ceddanne Rafaela grounder up the middle. But Jeremiah Jackson, with his momentum carrying him toward center field, uncorked a bad throw to first that even the elite scooper Pete Alonso couldn’t corral. You simply can’t give a red-hot team an extra out, and sure enough, the Red Sox took full advantage of the new life. Wilyer Abreu pounded a double to the wall in left-center (which Leody Taveras seemed to play tentatively), and while it looked like the O’s might have a chance to throw out Rafaela at home, cutoff man Gunnar Henderson uncorked a horrendous throw nowhere near the plate. The Sox took a 2-1 lead, and Gunnar’s error, the Orioles’ second in a row, allowed Abreu to take third base.
The next batter, Willson Contreras, smacked a sharp liner toward the middle. Henderson leapt in the air, snared the ball…and dropped it. Oh lord. I won’t say that was an easy play — Contreras smoked that ball, and it knuckled a bit — but it’s a play that I think Gunnar should have made. Contreras was credited with an RBI single, but Abreu wouldn’t have scored had he started that play on second base instead of third. And neither run that inning would’ve scored if Jackson hadn’t muffed the throw on the would-be final out. Baz deserved better.
To their credit, the Orioles battled back to erase their self-created 3-1 deficit. Christian Encarnacion-Strand, making just his second O’s start, was the unlikely spark plug. He tagged Tolle for a solo home run into the Green Monster seats in the fifth to make it 3-2.
An inning later, the O’s put together a truly impressive rally to regain the lead. Tolle retired two batters but gave up singles to O’Neill and Taveras to bring up Jackson. Jeremiah came up big, jumping on a first-pitch cutter and lacing it into left for a game-tying single. Would you believe that Jeremiah was making his first start in 15 days? Fifteen! I’m not saying he should be an everyday player or anything, but I feel like he’s earned a little more playing time than he’s gotten. And clutch hits like that one certainly don’t hurt his case.
Then it was Encarnacion-Strand’s turn to play the hero again. The O’s third baseman rolled a single up the middle, plating Taveras to give the Orioles a 4-3 lead. Nice! I enjoy when he does well, even if it means I have to take the time to type out E-N-C-A-R-N-A-C-I-O-N-dash-S-T-R-A-N-D every time. I’m willing to make that sacrifice. The Orioles, though, missed a chance to add to their lead when Sam Huff weakly struck out with two aboard. The absences of Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo felt particularly profound whenever we had to watch an at-bat from Huff, who struck out all three times tonight.
Baz now had a lead to work with, but it evaporated quickly thanks to another Orioles error. Baz only had himself to blame for this one, as he airmailed a throw past first base on Abreu’s slow roller near the mound, putting the runner on second. Abreu promptly scored on a Contreras double, knotting the score at four. Baz exited after the sixth inning, giving up four runs, but only two earned.
Again, the Orioles clawed back into the lead in the seventh on an O’Neill RBI groundout (which should’ve been a double play, but was muffed by Sox second baseman Anthony Seigler). And again, just as quickly, they gave it back, with another heaping dose of bad defense. With a runner at second and two outs in the seventh, Yennier Cano hung a two-strike sweeper to Rafaela, who lashed a single to left. Taylor Ward foolishly threw home even though he had no chance to get the runner, and his throw was so off-target that Rafaela took second. That’s error #4 for the Orioles, if you’re counting. Yeesh. That error didn’t cost the Birds, since Tyler Wells stranded Rafaela on a strikeout, but it’s still an ugly look.
At that point, the Orioles were all out of magic. The Red Sox weren’t. Light-hitting third baseman Caleb Durbin blasted the Red Sox into the lead with a two-out solo homer off Wells in the eighth, because of course he did. The exuberant Sox exploded in celebration in the dugout and the raucous Fenway crowd of 37,659 went wild. They were three outs away from their 14th consecutive win.
The Orioles, to their credit, didn’t make it easy for Boston in the ninth. Colton Cowser drew a leadoff walk and Henderson lashed his third double of the game, a two-out clanker off the Monster, to put two in scoring position against All-Star closer Aroldis Chapman. Tyler O’Neill was thisclose to delivering an enormous hit, lashing a sharp liner to the left side, but shortstop Tseng-Che Cheng made a nifty running grab to snare it for the final out.
The Red Sox made the plays. The Orioles didn’t. And that, in a nutshell, was the difference in this game.
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