The Orioles’ best starter warmed in the bullpen, retired the side in order in the first inning on only nine pitches and sat, waited and wondered if he’d get back on the mound.

Long rain delays are the enemy of every manager who detests an unplanned bullpen game.

Tomoyuki Sugano wasn’t done, warming again and returning after a 57-minute stoppage. Large puddles had formed in front of the home dugout area. Sugano looked for a while like he’d make the night’s biggest splash.

Sugano’s scoreless streak reached 14 innings before the Royals pushed across a run in the fourth. Cavan Biggio hit his first home run in the fifth, and the Orioles still couldn’t solve Royals left-hander Kris Bubic in a 4-0 loss before an announced crowd of 19,348 at soggy Camden Yards.

The Orioles were trying to win three in a row for the first time since the three-game series in Minnesota that ended the 2024 regular season. Instead, they were shut out for the fifth time.

They’re batting .174/.256/.234 against lefties, which continues to drag them down. Bubic tossed five shutout innings with four hits allowed, and southpaw Daniel Lynch IV replaced him and stranded a runner in the sixth and seventh.

Manager Brandon Hyde summoned Bryan Baker in the top of the seventh with Sugano at 79 pitches. Sugano allowed two runs and four hits in six innings, with two walks and four strikeouts, and his ERA stayed at 3.00.

Three of his last four outings have resulted in quality starts.

“I do feel confident, but more than anything, I think I feel more comfortable,” Sugano said through interpreter Yuto Sakurai. “I know how to prep in going into the game. I think those are more important to me, and yeah, I’ve been doing it well.”

Hyde said a delay of more than an hour would have prompted a discussion about Sugano’s availability.

“I thought he handled it fantastic,” Hyde said. “Both starters got their outings cut short by probably an inning or so because of that hour delay, but Tomo’s got a lot of experience and he stayed ready. Went down to the bullpen when the tarp was pulled. I thought he had the same stuff as he had in the first inning, so I thought he threw the ball great.”

Kyle Isbel’s leadoff homer in the eighth was the first surrendered by Seranthony Domínguez this season. Vinnie Pasquantino hit one 422 feet with two outs for a 4-0 lead.

Sugano got a ground ball, strikeout and foul popup in the first before the grounds crew raced onto the field and interrupted his start. Maikel Garcia lined a single into left field on Sugano’s second pitch of the second inning and Michael Massey hit into a 4-6-3 double play.

Sugano waited near the first base line to thank second baseman Jorge Mateo for the clean pickup and feed.

The side was retired in order in the third, leaving Sugano with pitch counts of nine, six and nine. He faced the minimum number of batters. Jonathan India led off the fourth with a double, Sugano fielded Bobby Witt Jr.’s check-swing comebacker and struck out Pasquantino, and Garcia dumped a curveball into center field for a 1-0 lead.

Biggio jumped on a first-pitch fastball and homered to right-center field with one out in the fifth. Both of Sugano’s walks came in a scoreless sixth.

“I’ve played baseball for a very long time, but it was my first experience having that (rain delay), but at the same time, the opposing team is going through the same situation, so I try not to think about it too much,” Sugano said.

“I was resting for a bit, but making sure my momentum wasn’t cut out that well at that moment. That’s how I was preparing. I was on the bike for the most part. I didn’t play catch at all in the cage or anything like that. I was able to go into the bullpen afterward when the rain cleared out, so that’s what I did.”

The experience tonight is another box for Sugano to check in his first season in the United States.

“In Japan, typically when there is a bad forecast, they will let us know ahead of time and just cancel the game,” he said.   

Bubic walked Adley Rutschman with one out in the bottom of the first and Gunnar Henderson poked a sinker through the vacated spot on the left side of the infield for a single. The next two batters were retired, with Ryan O’Hearn just getting underneath a slider and flying to the track in right.

Bubic also re-entered the game after the delay. The Orioles gladly would have paid for a cab after he held them to an unearned run with eight strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings in Kansas City.

Manager Matt Quatraro removed Bubic at 72 pitches, 52 for strikes. Henderson singled off Lynch with one out in the sixth and didn’t advance. Ramón Laureano drew a leadoff walk in the seventh and Lynch escaped again, with pinch-hitter Coby Mayo popping up in his first Orioles at-bat in 2025. Mayo stayed in the game at third base and struck out to send both teams back to their clubhouses.

“Found out this morning at the field in Charlotte about 11:45,” Mayo said of his promotion. “Not overly surprised. I know I was playing well. Not as obviously well as I could have been playing. Yeah, so wasn’t too surprised. Obviously happy and grateful for another opportunity.

“I know it wasn’t the best month for the team overall, and any guy who comes to this team, just a new guy can be a little spark. You hope to help a little bit. But it’s a really good team up here and I think that they had their struggles during the season and obviously we had ours a little early in the year, but it is what it is and the past behind us and you’ve just got to look forward.”

Ryan Mountcastle nearly tied the game in the fourth with a fly ball to center that traveled 390 feet to the track at 103.9 mph off the bat.

“Two good ones, yeah, and we’ve had our problems with both those lefties,” Hyde said of Bubic and Lynch. “And they have a really good bullpen. We saw that first-hand in the postseason. What a pickup last year, they got (Lucas) Erceg. He gets both sides out.

“We’ve gotta do a better job against left-handed pitching. I thought Mounty just missed one. Mayo just got underneath one against Lynch. But it’s been a struggle so far against left-handed pitching.”

But why?

“I have no idea,” Laureano said. “I don't even know what I'm doing either. So I'm hitting the ball harder against them but, at the end, that means nothing. This is a results-based sport and we're just not having … But when you look at, when you go analytic, sabermetrics, we're hitting the ball top five. They call it unlucky, the wOBA and all that stuff, unlucky, whatever.

“But hey, that's baseball. They shift you exactly where you hit it and that's part of the game, and each one of us will figure out what we need to do.”

* High-A Aberdeen’s Trey Gibson struck out 10 batters and allowed one run and one hit in 4 2/3 innings. Former Orioles minor leaguer Mac Horvath homered for the Bowling Green Hot Rods.