Tony Mansolino stood on the top step of the Orioles’ dugout this afternoon with his arms folded. He extended them while leaning against the railing with his fingers locked. He pulled out a card from his back pocket. He did all of it within about a minute in the top of the second inning, while another game got away from the team he now manages.
Like his players, he couldn't get comfortable.
The Nationals hit four homers off Zach Eflin on four different pitches in 1 1/3 innings to tie his career high. They hung seven runs on the board through the second. And they became the latest opponent to sweep the Orioles with a 10-4 victory before an announced crowd of 37,264 at Camden Yards.
The loss is the sixth in a row for the Orioles, 12th in 14 games and 19th in 25 to lower their record to 15-30. They didn’t lose their 30th game last year until June 25.
Eflin hadn’t allowed more than three runs in his 13 starts with the Orioles dating back to last season. He was charged with eight today in 5 1/3 innings. The 10 hits fell one short of his career high.
The best part of his day was being able to give the Orioles 5 1/3 on 93 pitches and keep Mansolino from depleting the bullpen or using a position player before the trip to Milwaukee.
CJ Abrams hit Eflin’s first pitch, a cutter, for a home run to right field at 105.2 mph off the bat. Luis García Jr. homered on the second pitch of the second inning, a towering fly ball to right off a changeup. Dylan Crews delivered a three-run shot at 106 mph on a sinker and Abrams followed with his second of the day on a curveball.
Keibert Ruiz added a two-out RBI single and was thrown out trying to steal with García at the plate again. James Wood had a sacrifice fly in the fourth after José Tena doubled and Crews reached on an infield hit.
The Orioles were down 8-0, and it didn’t matter where or how Mansolino watched the game.
Home runs by Cedric Mullins, Gunnar Henderson and Jackson Holliday shrank the deficit but couldn’t change the result. Josh Bell produced the Nationals’ fifth homer with a 433-foot blast off Bryan Baker in the eighth.
Day 2 of Mansolino’s managerial tenure didn’t go any better than the first, when Kyle Gibson allowed six runs in the opening inning and was designated for assignment today.
“I don’t think I slept a whole lot last night,” Mansolino said this morning. "I was telling somebody earlier, when my bedroom’s messy, I have a hard time sleeping. Any type of clutter. So the clutter in my ears definitely kept me up over the course of the night.”
And what constitutes this clutter?
“Getting the day organized,” he said. “Just all the different things that kind of go into this. When you’re managing in the minor leagues or you’re coaching in the minor leagues or you’re a third base coach here and doing the infield stuff, there’s information that you’re looking at on a daily and nightly basis that gets you through the day, that helps you make the best decisions you can. That information automatically changes when you’re sitting in the seat of a major league manager.
“Just trying to understand the information that I like that’s applicable for me and understand where our coaches can help move that process along and the load they can kind of help me carry. Just trying to get that part of the day organized.”
Mansolino is still wrapping his arms around the fact that he’s a major league manager, ditching the third base coaching box and standing in Hyde’s usual spot in the dugout.
“It’s hard to do that,” he said. “I don’t think that’s gonna come anytime soon. I think right now it’s just try to get up to speed, try to connect with everybody. This is very different from what I was doing. I had a nice little silo that I worked in and it was comfortable. This is about as uncomfortable as it gets right now. So just trying to communicate with everybody and connect the dots.”
The Orioles can’t get off the path that leads to nowhere.
Michael Soroka, who had a 6.43 ERA in three starts, didn’t allow a run until Mullins’ leadoff homer in the fifth inning – his team-leading ninth of the season. He also is first with 27 RBIs, 10 more than runner-up Holliday, after his run-scoring double in the sixth that followed Ryan O’Hearn’s double and knocked Soroka out of the game.
Henderson led off the sixth with his seventh home run on a high fly ball to right, measured at 359 feet, that kept carrying. He struck out in his first two at-bats to give him nine in the series and 21 this month.
Holliday homered to left field off Brad Lord in the seventh to cut the lead to 8-4. The Orioles showed late life again under Mansolino but dug the same early hole that’s trapped them for most of the season.
Kade Strowd made his major league debut in the ninth and allowed a run on an Abrams’ double and Wood ground ball single up the middle. He also struck out a batter and committed an error on an attempted pickoff.