The Orioles have reached the point in their season where a quality start from a veteran on a one-year contract raises hopes and also the chances of another trade.
Charlie Morton remains on an upward trajectory after a disastrous beginning with his new club, holding the Mets to one run in six innings this afternoon in the Orioles’ 3-1 victory over the Mets before an announced Game 1 crowd of 25,262 at Camden Yards.
Gunnar Henderson’s first career pinch-hit homer, a two-run shot off reliever Ryne Stanek in the eighth, made the difference and improved the Orioles to 41-50. A sweep would get them eight games below .500 for the first time since May 6.
Morton has allowed 15 earned runs in 51 2/3 innings in his last 11 appearances for a 2.61 ERA. He’s done for the first half, with his season ERA lowered to 5.18 after it stood at 10.89 back on April 20.
The Orioles traded reliever Bryan Baker to the Rays this morning for the 37th-overall pick in the upcoming draft, but he’s a likely exception with team control through 2028. Players on expiring deals are much more vulnerable if the club keeps selling.
“It’s not an agenda item to move any good players with multiple years of team control, so I would view it as us acting on a one-off opportunity,” said executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias. “It’s not a player that we were shopping or anything like that. The opportunity came, we had a motivated partner, we had a deadline coming up with the draft, and we thought it was a really good return and we said ‘yes.’”
The move was made before left-hander David Peterson shut out the Orioles for seven innings and Henderson batted for Luis Vázquez with Colton Cowser on first base. Baker already had his bags packed and was gone, which also meant missing Ramón Laureano’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly for a 3-1 lead.
“I don’t think you can ever really expect it,” Baker said. “Just the way my brain works during the season, it’s just kind of a one day at a time type of thing. I take it as it comes and today just entails something entirely different than what I expected.”
Grant Wolfram handled high-leverage duty today as the 27th man and tossed two scoreless innings with four strikeouts for his first major league win in only his third appearance. Félix Bautista recorded his 18th save.
The Mets led 1-0 in the fifth after Brett Baty’s leadoff walk and stolen base, and No. 9 hitter Tyrone Taylor’s double into the right field corner. Morton stranded two runners after a two-out intentional walk to Juan Soto.
Two potential turning points in Morton’s start came within the first three innings.
Brandon Nimmo led off the first with a single, Francisco Lindor walked and the runners moved up on a passed ball. Morton responded by striking out Soto and Pete Alonso and retiring Jesse Winker on a popup.
A two-out single for Lindor and Jackson Holliday error in the third created more problems, but Vázquez, making a rare appearance, backhanded Alonso’s ground ball deep in the hole and threw him out.
Another crucial escape was executed in the sixth. Mark Vientos, inserted into the game because of Jesse Winker’s back discomfort, lined a leadoff double into left-center field and was stranded. Laureano made a sliding catch in left to rob Luis Torrens.
Fans stood to cheer Morton, a drastically different reception following the boos that rained down on him earlier at home.
Holliday had a leadoff single in the first inning and Peterson retired the next nine batters before Jordan Westburg’s leadoff single in the fourth. Laureano dumped a single into shallow center field and Taylor threw out Westburg at third base.
Ramón Urías worked Peterson for 11 pitches before lining out to Nimmo at 108.5 mph, and the game remained scoreless.
Jacob Stallings led off the sixth with a single, Holliday hit a tapper in front of the plate that produced a force at second base, and Peterson picked off Holliday.
Peterson tossed seven scoreless innings on 87 pitches, returned for the eighth and gave up a leadoff single to Cowser. Stanek surrendered the home run, walked four batters and retired only two before manager Carlos Mendoza pulled him.
The Baker trade hands the Orioles a seventh first-day selection: 19th, 30th, 31st, 37th, 58th, 69th and 93rd.
The slot value for the 37th is $2,631,400, and the club’s $19,144,500 bonus pool money is the most for any team since its creation in 2012.
“That gives us a big opportunity to flex our muscle, and hopefully, if there are players that cost a little extra money because they've got college commitments, we'll be able to use it,” Elias said. “And I think that the fact that we had picks at 30 and 31 already, it makes us able to acquire a 37th pick because you've kind of already scouted players in that neighborhood of the draft. So we should be pretty well prepared for the picks at 37.”
Day 1 of the draft is Sunday evening, which is why Elias pounced on the Rays’ offer. He said the Orioles won’t target picks viewed as the most rapid risers.
“I don’t know that you ever do that in a draft,” he said. “I also think it’s hard to weigh that. You’d assume that college players move faster, but if you hit on the right high school player, if you choose the right high school player, they can move every bit as fast. So I think we’re going to look at the picks from a holistic talent standpoint, especially our early picks, and it’s hard to worry about that too much in the draft.”
Accepting a draft choice for a major league player spins the focus to the future, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be miles down the road.
“The draft picks are opportunities to bring really good players into the organization, and yeah, you may keep them and draft them and develop them and that may take two or three years. You may trade them that winter and that can impact the team,” Elias said.
“We’re going to see what we do with the pick, I have no idea who we’re taking with the 37th overall pick, but we’ll bring a really good player into the organization that we wouldn’t have otherwise had, and there’s a number of ways to monetize, to extract value from a really good minor league player.”