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Before the Orioles played their 117th game of the season tonight, they switched up the usual routine at home by gathering in the dugout to watch the latest Hall of Fame inductions. They stood at the railing, eyes locked on former center fielder Adam Jones as he addressed the crowd and tried to control his emotions.
"I took tremendous pride playing for you guys,” he said. “I took tremendous pride playing more for the name on the front of the chest than the name on the back."
Jones turned to the bench and reminded a team going through hard times that he was there, too, early in his career and to keep grinding.
“Trust me,” he said, “you do it long enough, you’ll be where I’m at.”
Rookie Brandon Young went to the mound and began warming for his 10th major league start, walked the first batter he faced and surrendered a long home run to Shea Langeliers.
The pep talk didn’t have an immediate impact.
Brent Rooker hit a three-run homer in the third to counter Gunnar Henderson’s go-ahead three-run shot in the bottom of the first, and the Athletics put away the game halfway through it in an 11-3 victory before an announced crowd of 30,078.
Young lasted three innings in his shortest start, with six runs charged to him, and the abuse carried over to the bullpen. The Athletics sent 10 batters to the plate and scored five times in the fifth.
“I felt good overall heading into it," said Young, who's gone 10 starts without a win to begin his career, the second-longest streak in franchise history behind Jimmy Yacabonis' 11. "Just, that makes it a little more disappointing when it’s a Hall of Fame night, bigger crowd, chance to go two up in the series. Letting the team down, it sucks.”
The offense absorbed some of the blame, with rookie Jack Perkins retiring 15 batters in a row after Henderson’s homer. He walked Jackson Holliday to break the streak.
Perkins was making his 10th major league appearance and only his second start.
Michael Kelly replaced him in the seventh and Ryan Mountcastle reached on an error. Mountcastle singled with two outs in the ninth for the Orioles' fourth hit. They were held to three last night. Dylan Carlson went 0-for-3 tonight and is hitless in his last 34 at-bats.
"Back-to-back nights like that, probably not what we would want," said interim manager Tony Mansolino. "There’s a lot of pressure on those top five guys to create something. I just think, with where the roster is at and where the lineup is at, there’s a lot of pressure on those first five guys and they’re going to live up to it and they’re going to have better nights than they did tonight.
"You've got to tip your cap a little bit to the A’s pitching. Listen, they’re not names that are familiar, by any means, but it’s good stuff. This team over there on the other side, they’re not that far off. It’s a couple really good arms they threw at us, the starters, the last two nights.”
The Hall of Fame ceremony attracted a guest list that included Cal Ripken Jr., Buck Showalter, Wayne Kirby, Chris Davis, Nick Markakis, Tippy Martinez, Bud Norris, Melvin Mora, Al Bumbry, Tommy Hunter, Mike Devereaux, Edwin Jackson, Jim Johnson, Dave Johnson, CC Sabathia, Xavier Avery and LJ Hoes. Jim Palmer left the MASN broadcast booth to present broadcaster Tom Davis with his green jacket.
Showalter received the loudest ovations, after his introduction and again as he slipped the jacket on Jones. Dean Kremer, Coby Mayo and Keegan Akin caught the ceremonial first pitches.
Adley Rutschman crouched behind the plate for Young and the early contact was loud. Lawrence Butler drew a leadoff walk and Langeliers followed with a 401-foot liner into the left field seats at 109.3 mph off the bat. The next batter, Nick Kurtz, lined to center fielder Greg Allen at 111.4 mph.
The inning drained 28 pitches out of Young. He’d be gone after 74.
Holliday led off the bottom of the first with a single on a ball that deflected off second baseman Luis Urías. Jordan Westburg reached on an infield hit and Henderson launched an 0-2 fastball over the center field fence. The crowd had its last reason to cheer.
Young stranded two runners in the second but began the third by allowing back-to-back singles and Rooker’s 24th homer. Tyler Soderstrom doubled and scored on Darell Hernaiz’s sacrifice fly.
“It’s just disappointing letting the team down," Young said. "Almost every time I go out. It’s just really frustrating. Pretty disappointed. I’ve just got to be better. That’s on me. I’m not sure, specifically, the challenges I was facing. It was just get in bad counts, leaving balls over the middle and they were making me pay for it.
“Honestly, I’m gonna try to forget it as quick as possible, really. I feel like I’ve been dwelling on the past few, but now this one, it’s like, you know, I’ve just got to get out of my head. Onto the next one, really.”
The Athletics pulled away in the fifth, with four runs charged to Yaramil Hiraldo. Rooker had an RBI double, Hiraldo committed a fielding error with two outs and Urías followed with a run-scoring single. Corbin Martin replaced Hiraldo and let two inherited runners score on Gio Urshela’s double. Langeliers brought home Urshela with a double. Only one run was earned.
“Just with where the roster’s at, at the configuration, there’s gonna be good nights and there’s going to be bad nights," Mansolino said. "You start to think about the Opening Day roster and how many of those guys are still here, right? And a lot of the guys who are here now started in Triple-A, so they weren’t in the big leagues because they had things to work on, and now they get thrust into the big leagues.
"With that, once they get here, there’s going to be some tough nights. There’s going to be some really good moments, and we’ve seen that since the roster kind of turned over. And there’s going to be nights where they get beat up, and that’s just going to be part of the deal here for a little bit until they get more experience and more time and are able to slow the game down a little bit.”
The Orioles (53-64) have allowed at least 10 runs in 14 games this season, their most since 2021. They've lost by at least eight runs on 12 occasions.
“Tonight was not a good night," Mansolino said. "You go in there and you play your butt off and you lose a 5-3 game, a 5-4 game, I think those are going to be the good bad nights, I guess, so to speak. But when you play through those games like that, that’s not good. We’re sitting there trying to figure out the pitching for today and then leave ourselves enough to win a game tomorrow. We were going to use (Luis) Vázquez, bring the shortstop in to pitch, all those scenarios. And I hope we don’t have a lot of those nights. And I do have some faith with what we have, and I’m hoping those are going to be few and far between, but when you are going through them, they’re not fun.”
* Right-hander Raimon Gomez, acquired from the Mets in the three-player package for Cedric Mullins, went on High-A Aberdeen’s seven-day injured list with a lower back strain. He hasn’t appeared in a game since the trade.
The IronBirds’ Luis De León struck out 12 batters in six scoreless innings and didn’t walk a batter. Vance Honeycutt went 3-for-5. Thomas Sosa homered and drove in four runs.
Triple-A Norfolk’s TT Bowens doubled and hit his 11th home run.
Alex Pham allowed two runs in four innings with Double-A Chesapeake. Levi Wells struck out eight in three innings and allowed two earned runs (three total).
Single-A Delmarva’s Keeler Morfe tossed 3 1/3 scoreless innings while allowing just one hit. Chase Allsup struck out 10 batters in four innings and allowed an unearned run and two hits.
