The Orioles’ sweepless series counter can be set back to 0.
The O’s suffered just their second sweep in the last two years — and their first by an American League team since April 2022 — in an instant dud of a finale in Houston, 8-1. The Orioles couldn’t pitch. They couldn’t hit. They didn’t play particularly good defense. It was 2021 all over again, and the O’s now head back to Baltimore on a three-game skid.
All right, Albert Suárez, I know your previous outing was a bit of a rough one (six hits, five walks at Yankee Stadium) but today is a brand new day. Clean slate. Fresh start. Time to get out there and redeem yourse….aaaaaand he gave up a home run on his first pitch. Jose Altuve ambushed a center-cut fastball and crushed it to deep left-center.
Well. Fine. At least it’s just one run. There’s plenty of time to settle down and keep the game within rea….aaaaaaaaaand he gave up five more hits in the first inning. Alex Bregman doubled, Yainer Diaz singled, Jeremy Peña doubled, Mauricio Dubón singled, and Joey Loperfido singled. When the dust settled, the Astros had sent all nine batters to the plate and scored four runs. Brutal.
It’s not as if Suárez was laboring — he threw only 23 pitches, no more than four to any batter — but the Astros were taking healthy, aggressive hacks, making hard contact on his fastball in particular. The right-hander wasn’t fooling anyone, looking more like the guy who posted a 6.46 ERA in Norfolk than the guy who’d been an out-of-nowhere revelation for the Orioles’ pitching staff.
The Astros continued to amass baserunners aplenty against Suárez, though they inexplicably bunted themselves out of a third-inning rally when, with two in scoring position and two out, Chas McCormick tried to lay one down and instead popped it up to Suárez. Thanks for the free out, Astros (not that it helped the Orioles win the game). An inning later, the Astros loaded the bases and this time managed a run out of it on Diaz’s sac fly to center, aided by a poor throw from center by Colton Cowser.
If there was one silver lining to Suárez’s dark cloud of an outing, he at least managed to get through five innings, eating up a few outs that the bullpen wouldn’t have to. That’s only a small consolation for a second straight stinker for Suárez, who gave up 10 hits, three walks, and five runs. That’s now 16 hits and eight walks in his last 8.2 innings, and you can’t help but wonder whether the magic has run out on his Cinderella story.
The Orioles’ low-leverage/mop-up relievers once again got into action on this road trip, with Dillon Tate and Nick Vespi each making their fourth appearance in six games. In the sixth, Tate gave up two runs on a Peña double that Austin Hays couldn’t catch with a leaping attempt at the wall. Vespi was tagged for a run in the eighth, the Astros’ eighth.
Perhaps the O’s still would have had a chance if they had hit like they did on Thursday and Friday. They…very much did not. Astros lefty Framber Valdez absolutely stymied them, twirling an almost identical masterpiece as Ronel Blanco the previous night. Just like Blanco, Valdez worked seven innings and gave up just one run. And in both cases, the lone O’s run came on a Jordan Westburg solo homer. That marked the Orioles’ 22nd straight game with a home run, extending their franchise record. It’s less exciting when they’re losing games.
By the time Valdez left, the Astros were so far ahead that they had not one but two pitchers make their major league debuts. An utterly defeated O’s lineup posed no challenge to either one. First up was right-hander Bryan King, who mowed down all three batters he faced in the eighth. Next came righty Luis Contreras, who worked past a Hays double in the ninth to retire the next three and wrap up the ballgame.
And that’ll do it. After looking like world beaters in the Bronx, the Orioles stumbled to an unsightly sweep against a sub-.500 Astros club. They went 2-4 on this road trip, marking their first losing road trip (or homestand, for that matter) this season. At least the Yankees also lost two of three to the Braves, so the O’s fell only one game further behind in the AL East race. They’ll head back to Baltimore tomorrow and look to get their act together against a very good Cleveland Guardians club.
