DENVER—Orioles manager Brandon Hyde knew he had to rest reliever Mychal Givens. What wasn’t certain was who Hyde would use in relief of Andrew Cashner.
Hyde did some major improvising, and the Orioles broke their seven-game losing streak with a 9-6 win over the Colorado Rockies on Saturday night.
Cashner left with 7-5 lead after throwing five innings. Miguel Castro worked the sixth, allowing a home run to Chris Iannetta.
The Orioles scored two runs in the seventh for a 9-6 lead. That’s when Josh Lucas made that improvisational plan work.
He pitched a scoreless seventh and a scoreless eighth. Although Richard Bleier was warming in the bullpen, Hyde sent Lucas back out for the ninth.
He closed out the Orioles’ victory, allowing just a hit and a walk in those three innings for his first career save.
“I mean, it’s hard to pitch here, but you can’t make excuses for the environment,” Lucas said. “You’ve got to just go out and throw and whatever happens, happens.”
Hyde had limited options.
“Castro and Lucas were the guys tonight,” Hyde said. “We needed Castro and Lucas to give us some innings. Castro was going to go back out, too, but we had a rally going, [Dwight] Smith with a big RBI hit to extend the lead, so somehow we pieced it together.”
Not only did Hyde want to keep away from Givens, his nominal closer, but he also wanted to rest left-hander Paul Fry.
Renato Nunez continued his hot hitting, with three hits and his 12th home run. Nunez has homered in four straight games and is the first Oriole to do that since Jonathan Schoop did it last July 22-26.
“It’s got to be the work I’m putting in in the cage, getting ready for the games, getting in the video room to watch pitchers and see how they’re going to work to me, and stick with the plan,” Nunez said.
Jonathan Villar had three hits, including his seventh home run, a three-run blast that gave the Orioles a 7-4 lead.
Pedro Severino also had four hits as the Orioles produced 17 hits, a season high.
“Our guys turn the page really well and they’ve been in almost every single game we’ve been playing, and we’ve just fallen short,” Hyde said. “You feel for a lot of the guys that are putting so much into it and tonight it feels good to hold on to a lead, give some guys a breather in the ‘pen and have a couple of guys step up big time. A really nice offensive performance, and we did a nice job on the mound.”
Cashner’s night: Cashner allowed five runs on eight hits in five innings and was lifted after 91 pitches.
“I was trying to go more,” Cashner said. “I was just gassed. I mean, running the bases, altitude, everything. For the bullpen to pick up four innings and give up one run is huge for us, especially with the kind of skid we’ve been on. Maybe give us some momentum going forward.”
Hyde wanted Cashner to go longer but realized he had reached his limit.
“Fatigue, battling, didn’t have his best stuff tonight,” Hyde said “I thought without his best stuff, pitched great in a tough place to pitch against a good lineup and gave us everything he had for five innings. This is a tough place to keep your stamina as you get deeper into the game. He got tired after the fifth.”
Cashner was 0-for-3, and hit for himself in the sixth inning only to have Castro enter the game in the bottom of the sixth.
“I wanted him to go back out for the sixth, knowing our bullpen situation,” Hyde said. “He would have done it, but I could tell it was the right thing to do to get him out of the game.”
Cashner is now 5-2, and he was happy for the run support. It’s the second time this season the Orioles have scored nine runs in a game he’s started.
“Man, here in Colorado there’s never enough runs,” Cashner said. “I don’t care if you have 15 runs on the board. I’ve seen them score nine runs here with two outs before, so there’s never enough runs in this ballpark.”
Farewell to Fraley: Gerry Fraley, a longtime baseball writer for the Dallas Morning News, died Saturday morning at 64. Fraley, who expertly covered baseball and other sports, had suffered from cancer for the last two years.
Fraley was a particular favorite of former manager Buck Showalter from the days when Showalter managed the Texas Rangers.
Every weekday, I’ll be answering at least one Orioles question. If you’d like to submit…
In a fine first month of the season for the Orioles, they received two of…
BALTIMORE—What happened? The Orioles took three of four games in their first series with the…
BALTIMORE—After enduring their first shutout of the season the night before, the Orioles hit three…
Terry Crowley played 12 seasons with the Orioles, and though he wasn't a regular, he…
BALTIMORE---With Kyle Bradish starting on Thursday against the New York Yankees and John Means returning…
View Comments
Why did Hyde let Cashner hit in the top of the 6th if he wasn’t gonna pitch in the bottom half?
He let him hit because he only had three bench players, and didn't want to burn a pinch-hitter, Raymo. Besides, Cashner is a good hitter.
Thanks for the reply Rich.
Is anyone else annoyed by Gary Thorne telling us where the pitch “will be”? He always talks in the future tense, which itself is annoying, but jeez Gary, it’s on TV. I can see with my own eyes where is the damn pitch was. Perhaps he was a radio broadcaster before making it to TV? I sure do miss Jon Miller.
Hard to have any complaints about that game. Really liked the Broxton pick up but he needs to cut out the K’s. The 3/8 is great but he already has 4 strikeouts. Like Wilkerson, that won’t last at that rate. Hopefully he gets that down because he has all the tools you want in a center fielder. I’d really like to see DJS up at the major league level but there’s no room if the team won’t cut Davis or the currently hot Nunez. And I don’t think either one of those things will happen.
I’m really curious what the next non-pitcher moves will be. For sure, Nunez definitely got hot at the right time. The Broxton signing was a surprise to me, even though we were playing without a true center fielder. If he can improve his hitting, great. If not, I’d just assume put a non-CF out there who can hit a little bit. I have no idea what the plan is at catcher, because most scenarios for this year have serious ?’s. And Mountcastle is chomping at the bit to get here as well. We’ll also see how the Davis injury plays into all this mess...
That is Broxton's bugaboo--K's(main reason Mets got rid of him). Probably a stopgap till Hays is ready.