BALTIMORE—A day after their ebullient win over the Los Angeles Angels that ended a 19-game losing streak, the Orioles followed it with a resounding win.
Keegan Akin threw seven strong innings and Pedro Severino had six RBIs, including a grand slam, in the Orioles’ 13-1 win over the Angeles before an announced crowd of 10,211 at Camden Yards on Thursday afternoon.
Temperature at game time was 91 degrees, and the heat index quickly reached 106.
Shohei Ohtani hit Akin’s second pitch over the right-field wall for his major-league leading 41st home run, but that was the only run Akin allowed and the only lead for Los Angeles (63-66).
Akin (1-8) pitched a career-high seven innings, the most by an Oriole starter since John Means on May 24th. After Ohtani’s homer, he gave up just two more hits, one a bunt and the other a fly ball that DJ Stewart lost in the sun. Akin walked two and struck out six, relying primarily on control of a fastball that reached 95 mph.
“That’s what you dream of as a starting pitcher,” Akin said. “You want to go out there and go six, seven innings, eight innings almost every start. It’s a lot harder to do than to say to do it.”
The Orioles (40-86) have their first two-game winning streak since July 30th-31st and recorded their first series win since they swept Washington July 23rd-25th. The Orioles scored 10 or more runs in consecutive games for the first time since June 6th-8th.
“I thought we were a little sloppy early and Keegan allowed us to stay in the game,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “It was an emotional night last night followed up by today. It’s a good feeling.”
Akin had never completed even six innings, and his win was his first since September 16, 2020, when he and Dean Kremer looked as though they might be in the Orioles’ rotation throughout 2021.The Orioles had lost 17 of the first 18 games Akin appeared in this season, and he was the seventh pitcher in franchise history not to record a win in his first 11 starts of the season. Kremer is trying to find his way back to Baltimore from Norfolk after going 0-7 with a 7.25 ERA.
Akin thought Wednesday night’s win relaxed the players and gave them a jolt of confidence.
“Everyone’s a little more confident,” Akin said. “The little blackout is over. It was a tough stretch.”
He retired the last eight batters he faced, with Hyde noting he got stronger in the latter innings. Akin abandoned the windup and threw out of the stretch.
“Try to keep things simple,” Akin said. “I was overthinking things for a good stretch … It’s starting to pay off a little.”
Trey Mancini’s RBI single against Angels Elvis Peguero broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth. Making his major league debut, Peguero recorded just two outs and allowed five runs.
Stewart’s RBI double gave the Orioles a 3-1 lead. Severino broken open the game with his grand slam on the first pitch by Jake Petricka. It was his 10th home run of the season, the second grand slam of his career, and the third grand slam of the season for the Orioles, and gave them a 7-1 lead.
Jahmai Jones had doubled to lead off the third and scored on Kelvin Gutiérrez’s single to tie the score, 1-1.
An RBI single by Ramón Urías in the seventh put the Orioles ahead, 8-1, in the seventh.
The Orioles had a five-run inning in the eighth. Gutiérrez and Cedric Mullins reached on errors and scored on Ryan Mountcastle’s single. Urías’ RBI double and Severino’s two-run single put them up, 13-1.
“We’ll try to finish strong,” Severino said. “It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish. We’ve lost a lot of games, and in the [next] month, maybe we’ll win 15 or 20 games.”
Notes: The Orioles begin a three-game series against Tampa Bay on Friday night. Matt Harvey (6-13, 6.27 ERA) will pitch for the Orioles. The Rays haven’t named their starter. John Means (5-6, 3.50) and Spenser Watkins (2-6, 7.07) are scheduled to pitch for Orioles on Saturday and Sunday. … Infielder Jorge Mateo remained out of the lineup because of a back injury.
Minor league update: Richie Martin hit a two-run home run in Triple-A Norfolk’s 4-3 loss to the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. César Valdez pitched two scoreless innings, allowing one hit in relief.
High-A Aberdeen outfielder Hudson Haskin fractured a thumb and will be out for the season. In 82 games with the IronBirds and Low-A Delmarva, the Orioles’ second-round pick in 2020 hit .274 with five home runs and 42 RBIs.
Left-hander Zac Lowther will continue his rehab assignment at Double-A Bowie. He’s on the minor league injured list because of a sore left shoulder.
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I think to celebrate the 2 wins we should BURN STEWART'S GLOVE and use him strictly for pinchhitting only. Since we have two excellent D H's that's out too.
Let's burn DJ Stewart's glove on a stake and dance around while chanting cool Druid chants. He will never, ever improve defensively and has never, ever made a good defensive play in his entire HS, college, and pro career...phffffft shmuckaluckle DJ's glove must be burnt!
Might as well throw in the Mountcastle and Mancini OF gloves!
LOL. He does seem to be good at drawing walks. Nothing else that I see.
agtee
I agtee too, I am a serial agtee'r as everyone knows...
Judi35, allow me to welcome you to this site. I have no idea how long you’ve read it but I don’t recall seeing you post before. I apologize if I’m mistaken. Anyway, I’m positive EVERYONE on this site that read your comment knew what you meant so don’t let a rude comment by someone else stop you from posting again. I’d like to think we’re all loyal O’s fans who want them to start winning again and in that respect we need to stick together. We just have differences of opinion on the approach they’re taking to become winners again, that’s all. Hope to see you post again. The more, the merrier.
Agree Judi, some are just trying to po (apparently) anyone they can...how they roll, some get get called out for it, some don’t...mostly we have fun here, welcome aboard...go O’s...
Now that's good baseball!
Great to see Akin have some good luck out there. That will do wonders for the young man. Winning breeds some confidence and Lord knows we need some of that.
Liked the offensive outburst, but particularly enjoyed the pitching.
Whew, we have at least tied the '62 Mets! Watkins is a retired jet, 707!
Dang missed it ...I hate day games.
Talk about a win/win for all fans in attendance. The “Oh’s” fans (and there were a fair amount of them) got what they wanted in the 1st inning and the O’s fans got what they wanted the rest of the game!
Can I get a blind squirrel finds nut regarding Severino's 6 RBIs? Or Stewart's good game? OMG he lost a ball in the sun!!! Yikes!!! Never happens! Never, ever!
I'm pretty sure Stewart should wear his helmet out in the field.
John Stewart "Lost Her In The Sun", great tune from 1979, wonder if they are related?!
Nice to see Akins pitch with authority. Madden manages like a guy who's gonna get fired. Madden kinda had a Hyde series--overkilled his bullpen only to see the succeeding pitcher be worse than the one he relieved. Yeah Hyde knows all about that. A puzzler why Stewart is only hitting .199. He has a great eye at the plate,drives the ball well. THEN he puts the glove on. Curious as to why Hays sat these last 2 games and DJ started in LF? Interesting stuff from Ben about some pitchers better not knowing when they're gonna pitch. Led to some good Arthur Rhodes talk. Lopez the case in point. That shuffling of the deck on Monday(releasing/calling up players) may have given a little spark. Good series. Feel good time.
DJ is hitting 0.203 with OPS of 0.711. And, yup, Madden, is horrible horrible horrible 1341-1167 and a WS, yup horrible horrible
Hyde couldn't carry his jockstrap!
Johnny Hustle is now 6 for 40! lifetime against Scherzer!
Nice to see well pitched game! Congrats Akin, and Lopez.
With the Haskin injury, Aberdeen is even further depleted. While I’ve seen many call ups as a single A short season club, the first yr in hi a has been a dumpster fire. Bowie has (if memory serves correctly) 15+ Aberdeen players that were called up this year. The team is depleted and filled with players that can’t or most likely haven’t adjusted to the jump from A to hi A. With a magical start to the season, the current Aberdeen club is almost as unsuccessful as its major league counterpart. Now, people often argue that call ups are a part of the minors, (which is true), but I haven’t seen many other rosters decimated by call ups (I am eyeballing it, but Wilmington Hudson valley, Bowling Green etc. are examples). Is this due to COVID, the fact that the Orioles are rebuilding (arguably mismanaged), or something else. It’s not that I haven’t seen a skinny version of this before, but this is pathetic!
Steve, minor league clubs are there to
develop players for the major leagues. They like their minor league teams to
win because it’s a good teaching tool, but they’re there to prepare players to move on.
If the players at Aberdeen are good, they move up to Bowie, and the Orioles have aggressively moved their players up this year.
Losing a year does factor into it, but they want to succeed at the major league level, and they’re moving players up as a result.
Many of this year’s draft choices that have recently been assigned to Delmarva will begin next year at Aberdeen, and if they are good, they’ll move on to Bowie and beyond.
Your observation, an original one around here, should be taken as a good sign for the Orioles.
Thanks for the response Rich. Of course, the milb clubs are there to develop and move up players, but I never saw it be this drastic.
Because Aberdeen's status has changed, and there are four affiliated clubs instead of five, the changes are more drastic. They're also trying to make up for the lost year in 2020, so they're moving players more aggressively.
Thanks for the answers!