One Is The Loneliest Number, When You Lose

On a day when the Baltimore Orioles learned that both Felix Bautista and Zach Eflin were lost for the remainder of the season due to injury, the Orioles lost their series opener with the Seattle Mariners (67-53) by a score of 1-0.

Seattle parlayed a Randy Arozarena first inning single and steal of second base into the only run of the game when Josh Naylor singled to right-field with two outs.

A pitcher’s duel

Baltimore starter Dean Kremer (8-9) gave the team 8.0 innings of one run ball. It was his longest start since September 23, 2022 when he pitched a complete game against the Houston Astros. On Tuesday Kremer allowed just the one lone run on 5 hits with a walk and 6 strikeouts, tossing 101 pitches (67 K’s) in doing so.

Seattle’s starter George Kirby (8-5) was just a tick better, limiting the Orioles to 3 hits over 7,0 innings with 7 punch-outs. Kirby faced the minimum through three innings, benefiting from a third-inning double play in doing so. The Orioles only threat against Kirby came on a Gunnar Henderson two-out double in the fourth.

Baltimore managed to get a runner into scoring position twice in the game and failed to cash in both times, thus tagging Kremer with the loss. Seattle, likewise, placed two runners in scoring position but obviously cashed in on one of those opportunities.

A ninth inning rally fizzles

Henderson walked with two outs in the ninth and an Adley Rutschman single put runners at first and second. Despite getting the home crowd into it with his long foul fly ball down the left field line, Ryan Mountcastle grounded out to short to end the game.

Referring to the foul ball, Mountcastle said, “It just sort of hooked foul at the last second. It happens. But it would’ve been nice for it to have stayed fair, but unfortunately, it didn’t.”

Summing up his team’s performance, Interim Manager Tony Mansolino had this to say. “Do you have to give credit to Kirby? Absolutely. He’s pretty good. I just think one through nine we’ve just got to do probably a better job of working some deeper counts and stringing together some at-bats and create a little bit more traffic. But yeah, you’ve got to tip your cap to Kirby a little bit. We just have to go out there, put together some good at-bats, and hopefully we can get that going tomorrow.”

BOX SCORE

2025 Record: 53-66

Next Game: Wed. 8/13 @ 6:35 pm vs. Seattle Mariners