In his first start since signing a contract extension over the weekend, Kyle Bradish was charged with throwing a quality start for the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway. This in hopes of salvaging one of three, splitting the doubleheader, and of course halting Boston’s 15-game winning streak – which tied a franchise-record. And he did all of that. Bradish’s line: 6.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 4 K.
Earlier in the day the O’s put Samuel Basallo on the IL. This after sending Adley Rutschman to the IL earlier in the week. The Orioles are now down both star catchers. And they could be without Tyler O’Neill, who was lifted from the game after wincing as he rounded first base on a base hit. The injury bug goes on.
Boston had to sue a spot starter for the game, and the Orioles didn’t allow him out of the first inning. With two outs in the first inning and Dylan Beavers at the plate, the pitcher Rivera uncorked a wild pitch scoring Pete Alonso.
Beavers immediately smacked a two-run single, and the O’s led 3-0 early on. But not for long – later in the inning Jonathan Rodriguez’s RBI-double extended the lead to 4-0. Boston lifted Rivera with two outs in the first inning.
That broke the game wide open early. Boston obviously had plenty of time to come back, however Bradish and later the bullpen wasn’t going to allow that. Bradish allowed an RBI-single to Yoshida in the fourth, but other than that Bradish shut Boston bats down.
No lead is safe at Fenway. But especially when Boston had won fifteen straight, and was going for sixteen. Again, that would have been a Boston Red Sox team record. This of course had it happened.
But it didn’t. While the Fenway Faithful tried to rally their team, the Oriole bullpen wasn’t having none of it. They sent down hitter after hitter. In the mean time the O’s got an insurance run, this on another wild pitch on the seventh which scored Gunnar Henderson. Yennier Cano held things over into the ninth, and the ball went to Tyler Wells, who shut Boston down.
It’s tough to drop two-of-three, however the O’s did go 4-2 on the road trip. Had Rutschman or Basallo been in the lineup, could the O’s have won one of those other two games? Probably. But end of the day, the Orioles are one game up in the win column than they were when the roadtrip began.
Birdland Crush 