Orioles ride into first place with 4-2 win over Angels

Albert Suárez did it again. The Orioles bullpen nearly did it again too. When it all came down to the end, the Angels had the winning run already on base but two men out, and Mike Trout at the plate to face Craig Kimbrel. As one likely future Hall of Famer squared off against another, Kimbrel fooled Trout by pumping strikes at the top of the zone.

A called third strike ended the game and the Orioles took a 4-2 win in the opener against Los Angeles. With the win, the Orioles also took first place in the AL East, thanks to the Yankees losing to the Athletics earlier on Monday.

Like many games that the Orioles have won going back to around the time Adley Rutschman debuted with the team, which as you know is also the length of their haven’t-been-swept streak (plus one), this is one where you might not have had a great feeling going into it. The O’s were going up against Angels starter Reid Detmers, who entered the game without having allowed a home run on the season, and who knew what the Orioles might get as Suárez faced a set of hitters other than the woeful assortment of Twins?

I won’t say that you need not have worried, because it certainly got tense there at the end, despite the Orioles having a 4-0 lead through the top of the seventh. The O’s broke that Detmers homerless streak early, with catcher James McCann batting in the second inning and cracking a towering fly ball that soared into the left field seats just on the right side (for the O’s) of the foul pole. They’ve been in the mood for that in the last couple of days, having just snapped the homerless streak of Kansas City’s Seth Lugo on Sunday.

At least as far as Suárez was concerned, this was all the support that he would need. The out-of-nowhere 34-year-old righty matched his Orioles debut with 5.2 scoreless innings on Monday night. Going up against the Angels has the automatically fearsome Trout, with guys like Taylor Ward and Miguel Sanó also hitting well to start the season.

No worries for Suárez, who pitched into the sixth inning without ever allowing multiple Angels to be on base at the same time. Of the five hits he allowed, only one was for extra bases.

This was a smooth outing, though not one without some luck in Suárez’s favor. Clearly more tired at the beginning of the sixth inning, Suárez started the frame by giving a free pass to Trout. The next batter, Ward, hit a liner right back up the middle, and Suárez was fortunate to be in the perfect position to field it, which he did. Trout was caught off guard and doubled off first base. That double play proved even more crucial after Sanó followed with a single. Not much harm in a single after the bases are empty.

At 89 pitches, Suárez’s night was over here. It’s tough to argue with that decision. The rest of the game would be in the hands of an Orioles bullpen that had an ERA that rounds up to 8 last week. Mike Baumann came in and struck out Mickey Moniak, preserving the 5.2 scoreless innings for Suárez. The final line on Suárez was five hits, two walks, and five strikeouts over his 5.2 inning outing, with Suárez recording swings and misses on an impressive 16 of his 89 pitches. That’ll do.

By the bottom of the seventh inning, the Orioles had all four of their runs. Adley Rutschman drove in Jorge Mateo in the third inning, a run that was set up by Mateo stealing second base AND third base after reaching base by walk. These were two of the five steals by Orioles runners in the game. The Angels drew in the infield and Rutschman floated a liner right over the shortstop’s head.

Rutschman tagged the Angels again in the fifth, hitting a two-out double that scored Gunnar Henderson from first base for a third Orioles run. Colton “The Milkman” Cowser completed the O’s scoring with a home run of his own in the seventh inning, giving him a share of the team lead with six.

All of these runs scored against Detmers, who pitched seven innings for the Angels but gave up four runs on six hits and three walks. Even with that outing, his ERA only raised up to 2.12. He gave his team the chance to mount a comeback, if they could ever get some offense going.

While Baumann cleared the sixth inning problem up, the basic challenge is that he’s who we (for the most part) think he is and that means there will always be more problems. He stunk in the seventh, serving a home run to Jo Adell to lead off the frame before giving up a single and a walk to the next two batters. An easily comfortable lead at the start of the inning suddenly wasn’t so comfortable, with the tying run at the plate.

Hyde, like all of us, had enough of Baumann, opting to bring in Yennier Cano. One thing you can count on Cano to do is get ground balls, and that’s what he did right away, inducing a double play grounder from Zach Neto to wipe away some of the threat. But only some, because there was still a runner on third base and Nolan Schanuel scored that guy with a single to make it 4-2. Trout came up, representing the tying run, and grounded out against Cano. The 2023 All-Star went on to get two outs in the eighth as well.

All of this set the table for the ninth inning drama. Kimbrel came in from the bullpen, looking to grab his 423rd career save to have seventh place on the career list all to himself. After getting an 0-2 count to his first batter, Adell, he went up and in and hit Adell. Once again, the tying run was at the plate. Just as quickly, the tying run was on base after Logan O’Hoppe hit a dying quail that fell in no man’s land in right field.

This was supposed to be an easy trek through the bottom of the Angels lineup. The only way they’d see Trout again was if the inning wasn’t over after five batters. The no-Trout cushion was quickly wiped away. Kimbrel would have to retire the next three in a row to avoid Trout. He only got one strikeout before walking pinch hitter Luis Rengifo, loading the bases for maximum drama. Schanuel popped out for the second out, bringing up, after all, Trout.

This is what no Orioles fan who stayed up for the game wanted to see happen. We have all been burned enough. We know how this story ends. Not even the 2023 Orioles were immune to some gruesome losses authored by otherwise-reliable relievers. Yet in the end it was as if Trout wanted no part of Kimbrel, because he swung at none of Kimbrel’s four pitches even though three of them were in the strike zone. The called strike three ended the game.

Suárez got his win, his first in an MLB game since the 2016 season. A lot has happened since then, in Birdland and in the world. Presumably, no one yeeted the baseball from Kimbrel’s final pitch into a fountain this time.

This series continues with another late night (for East Coasters) game on Tuesday. Grayson Rodriguez and Griffin Canning are the scheduled starting pitchers for a 9:38 contest. Canning sports an 8.05 ERA for the season, while Rodriguez has been quite good. What should happen is obvious. Whether everyone involved with the O’s can execute the obvious is what we’ll find out tomorrow. For now, I am going to sleep, and you perhaps are waking up, with the news that the Orioles are in first place, and that feels pretty darn good.