Orioles defeat Rangers for second straight win, 8-4

Despite the stacked talent battling it out on the mound, Saturday night’s three-hour, 15-minute grind was far from a pitchers’ duel. The two starters, future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer and Orioles youngster Grayson Rodriguez, struggled through two ugly innings of 50-plus pitches each, and the staff combined to allow 18 hits, 14 walks, three hit-by-pitches, and one balk. Texas’ pitching was particularly sloppy, failing to record a single three-up, three-down inning all night.

The difference was that Grayson Rodriguez regrouped in time to throw six solid innings, while Max Scherzer was eliminated after two innings, his shortest outing in three years. Moreover, the Texas bullpen had no magic formula to stop the Orioles’ batters, who scored eight decisive runs on 12 hits (three of them home runs) and nine hits, leading to a convincing series win in Arlington.

The 39-year-old Scherzer missed the first two months of the season while recovering from back surgery. At one point during his rehab, he lost feeling in his hand due to a pinched nerve. So it’s cool that he’s here, period. But tonight he was definitely working with a reduced arsenal: His four-seam fastball, which has averaged 94-95 mph in recent seasons, topped out at 91 mph today, and his control was gone.

The O’s had traffic on the bases all night, including from Scherzer. They stranded two in the first inning, but an aggressive approach led to four runs from the future Hall of Famer in the second. Jordan Westburg singled on the first pitch, Colton Cowser took an easy walk and Cedric Mullins dropped a bunt. The speed demon would even ran it out, but it didn’t matter because Scherzer airmailed the pitch to first base, allowing Westburg to score. No. 9 hitter Ramón Urías, continuing to show off his strange reverse splits, loudly singled to right field to drive in two more runs. It was 3-0 to the Orioles, and the Texas crowd was silent. With two outs, Santander made it 4-0, hitting a curveball for an RBI single to right field.

At this point, Scherzer looked exhausted. Not so much that I thought he would be pulled from the game, but he was clearly out of shape tonight. So the Rangers were forced to go to the bullpen in the third inning. Not ideal, and in that regard, right-hander José Ureña didn’t seem to fool the Orioles’ hitter either, but he’ll be back in a moment.

Let’s talk about Grayson Rodriguez. Until today, the unfortunate truth was that the Texas native had never pitched well against his home team: he allowed 11 runs in 8.1 innings against them last season, along with one postseason start that we’ll pass over without comment.

But it’s easier to pound the strike zone with a four-run cushion. Would Rodriguez settle if he got a head start?

He did, but it was a bit like watching someone learn to ride a bike: they put one foot on the pedal, then the other, then they wobble one way, then the other, and for a moment it looks terrible, but eventually they’re riding in a straight line.

Rodriguez’s first and second innings didn’t bode well, but he got stronger and stronger as the game went on, and surprisingly, after that start, he had his ninth quality start of the year and the best 12 in the AL.^e to win.

To recap the shaky part: Rodriguez needed 25 pitches, including a game-leading-off walk to Marcus Semien and a clearly unearned strikeout of Corey Seager (I’m just saying, here’s the pitch) to get through the first. To the youngster’s credit, it must be said that he used to be trying to establish his secondary pitches early. That’s cool, but you still have to land them…

Rodriguez would fail to provide a shutdown second after holding a four-run lead despite being at the bottom of the Texas order. He threw a pair of offspeed pitches to put men on second and third, then threw one too many fastballs to backup catcher Andrew Knizner, who cut the lead to 4-2 with a single.

It looked like this could be an ugly game, but at that point Rodriguez was able to turn things around while the Texas pitching department, now without a starter, could no longer shut down the O’s offense.

Baltimore threw a fifth run on the scoreboard from right-hander José Ureña. The first two batters in the third inning—Westburg and Cowser—smoked line drives at 102 miles per hour, albeit into the gloves of outfielders. The third—Cedric Mullins—was unstoppable, hitting a 409-foot highlight-reel blast into the stands. 5-2 Orioles.

In the fourth inning, Rodriguez got a boost from his defense. He challenged Adolis García with a curveball on the first pitch, and if we’re being honest, García won the challenge by driving a ball deep into the left corner. But a sprinting Colton Cowser covered 57 feet of ground, hauled the ball in, and robbed García of extra bases, much to García’s dismay.

From this point on, Rodriguez was completely in the zone, the only shame being that his 50-something pitches in the first two innings meant he had to leave early. He retired 13 of his last 14 batters, including throwing the side swinging in the sixth inning that gave him eight K’s on the night. It’s the first time he’s pitched properly in front of his family and friends in Texas, and I can’t imagine how good that must feel.

The Orioles’ offense, meanwhile, maintained a relentless onslaught. Two ice-cold killers at the bottom of the order were Ramón Urías, 3-for-4 with a walk and two RBIs, and Jordan Westburg, 3-for-5 with two RBIs, including a two-run bomb off Texas left-hander Jacob Latz to make it 7-2 in the sixth inning. The ball traveled a low-key 424 feet, but then again, it seems like everything Westburg does is low-key.

An eighth run was a heartwarming climax as Ryan O’Hearn, who had suffered a horribly painful knee injury the inning before (and had been hit once before that), beat the Texas closer to 3-2 and then sent him flying, putting an exclamation point on the evening.

There was some mild drama of the bad kind, courtesy of the back of the bullpen, after Rodriguez took the showers and Jacob Webb had spun a scoreless seventh inning. Lefty Cionel Pérez lost the strike zone in the eighth, giving up two hits before recovering a flyball to Yennier Cano, who allowed a run-scoring double and barely survived the inning. Craig Kimbrel gave up a leadoff single in the ninth, plus a single and a balk. Oh well, good enough.

Not much pretty pitching tonight, save for Grayson Rodriguez’s fifth and sixth innings, but the Orioles offense came out loud again, now having scored 17 runs against the reigning world champions in two games of this series. They’ll go for the sweep tomorrow with Dean Kremer on the mound against Andrew Heaney.