Orioles lose two leads and game to go 4-6 on trip (with quotes)

SEATTLE - The Orioles continue to score first, to take early leads as if trying to assert themselves. What doesn't necessarily follow is a win, which they so badly need while chasing the second wild card.

Ubaldo Jiménez stayed in today's game long enough to be charged with six runs, including three in a decisive fifth inning that finally forced his exit, and the Orioles lost to the Mariners 7-6 before an announced crowd of 33,448 at Safeco Field.

The Orioles went 4-6 on their West Coast trip and fell to 59-62 overall. They lost two of three in Anaheim and Seattle and split four games in Oakland.

A bases-loaded, no-out situation in the ninth yielded two runs on Manny Machado's sacrifice fly, with Leonys Martin making a sliding catch in right-center field, and an Edwin Diaz pitch that hit Mark Trumbo with two outs. Chris Davis faced left-hander Marc Rzepczynski and struck out on three pitches, the last one looking.

Diaz walked three batters and hit two.

Scoring first in eight consecutive games and in the first inning in the past five didn't do much to fortify the Orioles' pursuit of a playoff berth. They're 3-5 in those eight games.

Tim Beckham hit a leadoff home run against Marco Gonzales, but Jiménez fell behind in the fourth on Yonder Alonso's two-run homer. The Orioles scored three times in the fifth and Jiménez immediately gave back the runs, with five of six batters reaching before manager Buck Showalter finally made the switch.

Robinson Canó, Alonso and Danny Valencia collected RBI singles. Jiménez also hit Guillermo Heredia on the right arm after Jean Segura's leadoff single. Heredia had to leave the game.

Jiménez wasn't long for it, either.

Wade Miley allowed three runs last night in 4 2/3 innings. Jiménez gave up six runs and eight hits in 4 1/3, with a home run and two hit batters. The rotation took a big step backward on the Seattle portion of the trip.

Showalter didn't call upon Richard Bleier until Valencia lined a run-scoring single into right field. Alonso's RBI single came on a ground ball to the left side to beat the shift.

Martin led off the sixth inning with a home run off Bleier to expand the lead to 7-4. Chris Tillman, making his second relief appearance in the majors, tossed a scoreless seventh after allowing back-to-back singles - a double play and Mancini's diving catch bailing him out. Zach Britton shut out the Mariners in the eighth despite allowing two hits and walking a batter.

Diaz opened the ninth by walking Caleb Joseph, pinch-hitter Seth Smith and Beckham. Martin's grab may have saved the game. Rzepczynski earned his second career save.

Beckham has two career leadoff home runs and they've come within a span of three days. He keeps going to the opposite field and staying hot, his run-scoring single in the fifth making him 31-for-65 with the Orioles, including seven doubles, two triples, five home runs and 12 RBIs.

Did he want out of Tampa that badly?

The Orioles have hit nine leadoff home runs this season.

Beckham's RBI single completed a three-run fifth that gave the Orioles a 4-3 lead. Joey Rickard and Joseph singled with one out and Rickard came home on a wild pitch. Craig Gentry followed with a triple, his first since Oct. 4, 2015 in Seattle while playing for the Athletics, and he scored on Beckham's single.

Gentry also singled to lead off the seventh and was stranded. The Orioles need to make room Thursday for Rule 5 outfielder Anthony Santander, which puts Gentry's roster spot in jeopardy, but they could choose instead to option Rickard.

"I know what we're going to do going into it," Showalter said before the game, also referring . "Waiting to hear from Dan (Duquette)."

Gonzales was making his first start against the Orioles and brought an 8.49 ERA into the game. He retired eight of nine batters and 10 of 12 before Rickard's single in the fifth opened the floodgates.

Beginning with Trumbo's ground ball to end the first inning, 10 outs were scored 6-3, 5-4-3, 6-3, 5, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 and 6-4-3.

Jiménez responded to Beckham's home run with a shutdown inning, so elusive for this club. He threw 12 pitches, got a called third strike on Heredia and had only one full count.

The parade route is still under discussion.

The first three hits off Jiménez were doubles, two coming in the third inning to tie the game. Mike Zunino led off the inning with a double and scored with two outs on Heredia's two-bagger.

Jiménez hit Nelson Cruz to open the fourth and Alonso followed with a long home run to right field with the count full.

It got better for the Orioles, and then it got worse for Jiménez. And a chance to finish .500 on the West Coast disintegrated.

Their playoff chances didn't take on the same form, but games like this one - trips like this one - won't help the cause.

Note: The Orioles are starting Jeremy Hellickson Friday night at Camden Yards. The Angels are starting left-hander Andrew Heaney, making his 2017 debut and only his second major league appearance since 2015. He underwent ligament-reconstructive surgery on his left elbow last summer.

Showalter on what he saw from Jiménez in fifth: "His breaking ball was elevated a lot today. It wasn't like they hit a lot of balls hard off him. I thought the seeing-eye one from Alonso, it's a double play ball usually. It just found a spot. Probably deserved a better fate. He's been pitching so well for us. But we got Zach some work. We got Tillman back out there. He presented himself well again. That was even better than the last time out.

"We had some opportunities. Ubaldo's been pitching so well for us. Today was a little bit of a struggle."

Showalter on Jiménez hitting a couple batters: "He's got a chance to put them away and now all of a sudden, next thing you know they're at first base. Which you could say about their guy, too, who's a good, young relief pitcher. This is hard to do out there. It's the last-day road trip, it's hot. He was very close to having a lot better outing. Take those two hit-by-pitches away and it's a different look."

Showalter on his evaluation of Machado and Davis at-bats in ninth: "Machado at-bat? They made a great defensive play or we've got an even better situation than we had. They helped us out, but we were also very selective there to that point. Created a good opportunity for us. It's one of those games you can look back at seven or eight things over the course of the game. But you know what? We're headed back to Baltimore.

"It's been a long trip. We have a chance to roll the dice the last six weeks and that's what we hope to do. Compete with a chance to play in October. We're still engaged in it."

Showalter on whether he evaluated each at-bat while deciding how long to stick with Jiménez: "Somewhat. You're also doing Valencia a heck of a favor to bring in a left-hander. I thought the home run to (Martin) hurt us. Richard's been pitching so well for us, that's a guy he usually gets out. But some of it is how hard are they hitting him and all that type of stuff, but some of it's also the matchups it creates behind it."

Showalter on Mancini defense: "He's been solid. The work he and (Wayne) Kirby and Brady (Anderson) in spring training have done, it's just been a lot of fun to watch. I watch him every day in batting practice. He's taking balls off the bat like the World Series and that's how you get better and it's been fun to watch. Very quietly this whole trip, he's played about as good an outfield as you want to see played for a big guy."

Showalter on Mancini and Trumbo updates after being hit on hand by pitches: "I'm not sure. I'm getting ready to talk to Richie (Bancells) after he collects all the information. They had it pretty ... but so did their guys. It's a tough day physically. Guys are a little weary and you've got to push through it."

Showalter on assessing road trip: "I assess it that it's over, it's behind us, whatever happened. There was a chance for it to be better. I'm not going to say a chance for it to be worse. I'm not going to look at it that way. We had some opportunities and we also won some games in touch places and stayed engaged in the competition and we've given ourselves a chances these last six weeks. Let's see if we can take advantage of it now getting back to a place that feels like it's been about a year since we've been there. Not quite that. It feels like we've been gone a month."

Jiménez on fifth inning troubles: "The breaking balls weren't good since the beginning of the game. The first couple of innings I was able to control the fastball down in the zone, but the slider and the split were up."

Jiménez on hit batters hurting him: "Yeah, especially in the last inning. I had him with two strikes and we were trying to go inside and the sinker just kept going. Of course, it changes everything because then I have to face Canó with two runners on base instead of one out or maybe getting a double-play before facing Canó. It changes everything."

Jiménez on trip: "You know, any time we have to come to the West Coast it's always a challenge. You have to fight with the (three) hours change and things like that, but I think we fought. Things didn't go the way we wanted to. We wanted to win more games, but I mean we just fought."

Gentry on trip: "You know, I thought we played a lot better as a whole on the whole road trip. It's tough to come out and lose this series, but it's baseball and it's part of it. But we're just going to have to bounce back, hopefully get some rest on the off day and finish up strong."

Gentry on contributing: "Yeah. I feel confident right now and luckily I'm able to make some things happen and hopefully just keep it going. Get a couple of positive results and it kind of builds your confidence a bit. I feel like I'm swinging the bat lately and hopefully just keep it going."

Gentry on whether he was confident team would rally in ninth: "Oh, absolutely. We had the bases loaded with our big guy up and we were down by only one run. I thought we had a great chance of coming back. But that guy they brought in is very good, too. It's part of the game. I thought we battled the whole time and it was kind of back and forth the whole day."

Gentry on glad to be going home: "Yeah, this definitely was a long road trip, a tough road trip, and we're definitely excited to be home where we're comfortable. We'll have an off-day tomorrow and hopefully we can finish out this thing strong."

Joseph on Jiménez: "I think his split was just inconsistent. He had a really nice one in Oakland. A couple of starts in a row he's had a really nice split action. The slider was pretty good today, but I think that was kind of the main thing. He had a nice fastball and did a good job for the most part with it, but we just couldn't find a way around not having a split today.

"You know, you get the home run from Alonso, the other hits were just kind of bloopies. You've got to find a way to somehow make a play or something when those kind of innings are happening. Sometimes, a good defensive play can really shift the momentum there. It's one thing if they're just rockets being hit all over the place. He was doing pretty good early on, and just that one inning kind of got to him."

Joseph on road trip: "It's early to be really disappointed. You never know which run is going to assure victory and just in today's instance, I mean, you look at those tack-on runs late, which seemed to put the game out of hand, we come back in the ninth inning and we've actually got a shot. For me as a catcher, it's hard to evaluate the entire road trip right now, to be honest with you. You like to play .500 on the road. I thought we had a couple of games that we kind of let slip away.

"Going 4-6, we probably could have been 6-4. That looks totally different, and the way the standings are shaping up now, who knows? But, it's over with and got to get ready because we're getting these same teams coming in here next week and we have to take care of business. We can't let those games slip away like we did this past week."

Joseph on hating to lose a close game: "They all stink. I personally like losing 10-zero than by one run just because you get some momentum and especially late in the ninth inning, you feel a comeback coming as I alluded to earlier, as other teams have done to us this past road trip. Those type of games, when you win like that on the road, it can really build momentum. It doesn't mean we can't start the next homestand with momentum, but it does.

"It stings. Those are the type of games ... The reality is we kind of put ourselves in that hole early on. We had some opportunities against their starter and we could have pushed across more runs there. That, I think is another big point of emphasis, is when we have guys we should score runs on, we need to take full advantage. We don't need to be complacent with just one or two runs."