Gibson serves up five home runs in return to Orioles in 15-3 loss

The crowd didn’t erupt when Kyle Gibson was introduced and began to warm for tonight’s start at Camden Yards. The moment lacked sentimentality, which was fine with the veteran pitcher and the team that he returned to after signing in March as a free agent.

The Orioles hoped that Gibson could get into the middle innings as they gradually stretched him out. They wanted him to provide some stability and leadership to a rotation that’s torn apart by injuries.

It couldn’t have gone much worse.

The first three Yankees and four of the first five homered off Gibson, and back-to-back doubles put another run on the board before he got the final out. Ten batters came to the plate. A swinging bunt single left Gibson sprawled on the grass, the awkward split looking as painful as the results.

Gibson surrendered another homer in the second and was charged with nine runs in 3 2/3 innings, and the Orioles’ attempt to win back-to-back games for the second time fizzled. A 15-3 loss before an announced crowd of 22,164 lowered their record to 11-18, raised more concerns about their starters and sparked another debate over the exact location of rock bottom.

Trent Grisham launched Gibson’s second pitch, a cutter, onto Eutaw Street to begin the game. Aaron Judge (sinker) and Ben Rice (changeup) also went to right field for a 3-0 lead manufactured on five pitches.

Cody Bellinger drove a fastball onto the flag court with one out, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Anthony Volpe followed with doubles. Chisholm injured his right flank on an earlier swing and left the game after reaching third base on right fielder Ramón Laureano’s fielding error.

Oswaldo Cabrera’s infield hit caused Gibson to lose his footing. Rice did his part to make sure the Orioles would lose the game by homering again in the second on a curveball. Gibson was burned by five different pitches.

“At that point I’m just trying to figure out how we’re gonna get through the game,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “Hopefully he settles down a little bit and gives us some innings. It’s his first start. It’s not an easy assignment. He got into the fifth, but Gibby will get better as he gets more comfortable. This is his first major league start this year.”

“Not many times have I done that in the first inning,” Gibson said. “I’ve had a couple instances where teams jump you like that. I think four homers on four different pitches, and then a homer on a different pitch the next inning. So, just a weird instance where some of them were bad location. A couple of them weren’t. I’ll go back and look at it and try to see if I was doing something or getting in a pattern. But yeah, physically, I felt good, and that’s kind of the frustrating thing, when you feel good physically and the results don’t show that.”

Gibson kept trying to find ways to get out of the spiral.

“You’ve got to kind of process it, figure out if they were all just bad execution or the wrong pitch, and try to go get outs the next inning,” he said. “You can’t change what happened, and definitely, if you sit there and worry about what’s happened, more bad things are going to go wrong. So sure, it’s obviously way less than ideal, but you’ve got to go out there and get the next inning and see how far into the game you can get a try to put up some zeroes.

“You’ve got to keep throwing and use something else to be your form of confidence, you know? I’m prepared. Look at your preparation, look at your notes, and go back out there and try again.”

Gibson hadn’t served up four homers in an inning in his career, and tonight was only the third time that it happened over the course of an outing. Left-hander Bruce Zimmermann was the last Orioles pitcher to surrender five in a game on May 29, 2022, in Boston.

According to STATS, the only other pitcher in major league history to allow four homers in the first inning in his first start of the season is the Brewers’ Nestor Cortes on March 29 against the Yankees.

Dylan Bundy gave up four against the Royals in the first inning on May 8, 2018. Jason Hammel allowed three and T.J. McFarland one against the Tigers in the fourth inning on June 1, 2013. The Blue Jays connected against Keegan Akin (one), Tanner Scott (two) and Manny Barreda (one) in the seventh inning on Sept. 11, 2021.

Gibson became a part of painful Orioles history.

It led to another daunting early deficit and emotionally draining battle to stay afloat.

“I don’t think it’s ever easy because it’s happened to us quite a bit so far this year,” Hyde said. “We’re having a tough time keeping teams down early in the game.”

Seven batters in a row were retired before Judge, Rice and Paul Goldschmidt singled in the fourth to fatten the margin. Bellinger walked and Oswald Peraza followed with a two-run single for a 9-0 lead.

The last Orioles pitcher to allow nine earned runs was Gibson on Aug. 11, 2023 in Seattle.

“It looks like he just left some balls in the middle in part of the plate to those left-handers,” Hyde said. “Tough time commanding the ball early. I thought he got a little bit better in the second and third but probably ran out of gas there in the fourth.”

Hyde brought in Matt Bowman after the Yankees collected their 11^th hit off Gibson. The Yankees scored three times off Bowman in the fifth and Hyde turned to Charlie Morton, working in relief with a fifth starter not needed until May 10.

Morton did his finest work in the blowout, lowering his ERA to 9.45 with only an unearned run over 2 1/3 innings after Gunnar Henderson dropped a bases-loaded line drive with two outs in the seventh. Jackson Holliday was a late sub at second base and committed his first error of the season in the eighth inning, leading to an unearned run against Cionel Pérez.   

Austin Wells was 0-for-5 until homering off Bryan Baker in the ninth for the Yankees’ 19^th hit. Talk about being late to the party.

“Charlie Morton really helped us out,” Hyde said. “Went 80 pitches a couple days ago and goes 2 1/3 for us to help out the team, so appreciated that very much.”

Left-hander Carlos Rodón had his own thing going on, retiring the first 15 batters before Emmanuel Rivera led off the sixth with a walk and Jorge Mateo doubled off the out-of-town scoreboard. Judge made a diving catch to rob Henderson in the first, Rodón snared Adley Rutschman’s line drive in the fourth and Volpe made a diving stop up the middle and threw out Laureano in the fifth.  

Left-handers held the Orioles to a .177 average, .257 on-base percentage and .234 slugging before tonight. Rodón was just following the script.

Dylan Carlson’s ground ball scored Rivera and the crowd cheered - with a tinge of sarcasm. Henderson received a more genuine ovation with a leadoff homer in the seventh on Rodón’s last pitch of the night, giving the Orioles two runs and two hits. They’d finish with three runs and three hits after Holliday’s single in the ninth and Ryan Mountcastle’s sacrifice fly.

Mountcastle is hitless in his last 18 at-bats and 2-for-34.

“That’s just baseball,” he said. “I’ve had struggles before, so has everybody else. Just going to keep taking it day-by-day and try and get better each and every day.”

Maverick Handley made his major league debut in the sixth inning. He was behind the plate. The Orioles didn’t ask him to pitch.

Cade Povich gets the ball Wednesday night to close out the series and will try to lower his 5.04 ERA. Dean Kremer’s ERA is 7.04.

Zach Eflin, Grayson Rodriguez, Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells, Albert Suárez, Trevor Rogers and Chayce McDermott are on the injured list. Rogers had a rehab start tonight at Triple-A Norfolk and allowed four runs and four hits with three walks in 1 2/3 innings.

The Orioles didn’t sign Gibson to make one appearance. He’ll try again. The Orioles need him to be a lot better, but that’s true of just about everyone.

“You know, today was a tough one,” Mountcastle said. “That’s the great thing about baseball. We’ve got tomorrow. Hopefully we can bounce back and win the series tomorrow.”

“You come back tomorrow and I think our guys are going to come back to try to win the series, hope that Povich sets the tone for us on the mound,” Hyde said. “Guys will be ready to go. Just throw it away and come back tomorrow. We’ll have our hitters meeting, and it will be positive. We’ll try to figure out how to beat Carlos Carrasco.”