Late innings rally falls short, Orioles lose to Blue Jays 8-6

In case you were worried that the Orioles might find a streak of competence, sweep the Blue Jays, and climb out of the MLB cellar...well, don’t. After a win last night the Orioles were back to their old shenanigans tonight. They staged a late-inning rally but when your pitching gives up eight runs, it’s pretty tough to come back. The final score was 8-6 Blue Jays.

The Blue Jays sent out Derek Law to start this game, but he was gone after one scoreless inning in favor of Edwin Jackson. Jackson was originally slated to start the game despite four consecutive abysmal starts. When asked why, manager Charlie Montoyo literally said, “We don’t have anybody else.”

So naturally, Jackson wasn’t half bad against the Orioles. Two runs in five innings isn’t great, but compared to his last four starts when he gave up a total of 29 runs in 14.2 innings, it was pretty much a masterpiece.

The first run of the game scored in the fourth inning on a solo home run from Trey Mancini, who you may have noticed the Orioles are lobbying hard for an All Star appearance. The dinger was hit to center field, Trey’s 14th of the year. The Orioles scored their second run off Jackson in the fifth thanks to Jackson’s own troubles. He walked the first two batters and later threw a wild pitch to allow one to score.

The last time David Hess saw the Blue Jays, he was 6.1 innings into a no-hitter when manager Brandon Hyde pulled him from the game so as not to over tax his arm so early in the season. It’s been pretty much all downhill for him since then, so maybe Hyde should have just left him in.

At first, Hess picked up where he left off in that no-hit game back on April 1st. He didn’t allow a hit through the first 2.2 innings, prompting your favorite Orioles sports writing personality to point out that he’d gotten nine straight no-hit innings against the Blue Jays. Seriously, take your pick. Viv, Connolly, Ruiz, Trezza, The MASN contingent did abstain.

That was fun while it lasted, which wasn’t much longer. Hess walked Cavan Biggio before giving up his first hit to a Blue Jay in 2019 to Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. Another walk loaded the bases before Hess got out of trouble.

Well, until the fifth inning. Hess faced four batters, all of whom reached base. He had thrown a total of 96 pitches with no outs in the fifth and his day was finished. Miguel Castro took over and things got even worse. A run-scoring wild pitch, a walk to re-load the bases, and a grand slam put the Blue Jays comfortably ahead. But they added two more in the sixth inning for good measure, courtesy of pitcher Evan Phillips.

With the Orioles trailing 8-2 going into the 8th inning, it felt like the game was already decided. And it was, but the O’s made some noise first just to make things interesting.

A double from Jonathan Villar and walks to Anthony Santander and Trey Mancini loaded the bases with one out. Fun fact, all three of those batters faced a different Blue Jays pitcher. Is the Blue Jays bullpen as bad as the Orioles bullpen?

Chance Sisco certainly seemed to think so. He lined a two-RBI double to right field to make the score 8-4 and Renato Núñez grounded out to make it 8-5. This is...exciting? Yes, I am going to declare it exciting!

After a walk to Pedro Severino, Rio Ruiz singled in Sisco. Two run game! Can they do it? Can? They? DO IT?

No, of course not. They did not score again in the eighth but in the ninth were right back in action (until they weren’t). Pinch hitter Chris Davis (sad day, Keon Broxton) walked and then Villar was hit by a pitch. They both moved up on a wild pitch, putting the tying run on second base with no outs. All they needed was a single!

Santandar popped out, Mancini struck out, and Sisco struck out to end the game.

The moral of the story is, don’t give up eight runs and expect to win.