Burnes struggles again as O's fall 6-4 in Los Angeles (updated)

LOS ANGELES – With a chance to win this series and ruin Shohei Ohtani and Decoy (his dog) bobblehead night at Dodger Stadium, the Orioles took an early 3-1 in the second inning.

But by the last of third, they trailed 5-3 and were wondering again why right-hander Corbin Burnes suddenly began pitching poorly a few starts ago.

Burnes allowed six runs, just one earned, including Teoscar Hernández’s long three-run homer in the third, as the Dodgers beat the Orioles 6-4 to even this series.

Another sellout crowd was on hand with 53,290 at Dodger Stadium as Los Angeles improved to 79-54 with its 13th win in 18 games. Los Angeles is now 44-24 at home and 10-4 versus American League East clubs.

A win would have moved the Orioles into a first-place tie with the Yankees, who lost again at Washington. But the O’s could not get it, now sitting at 77-57 and one game out.

Burnes went five innings, allowing five hits and six runs on two homers. He walked none and fanned four, falling to 12-7 with an ERA of 3.23.

Over his past three starts, he has allowed 20 runs (14 earned) including four homers in 14 2/3 innings. In his past five games, he has allowed 28 runs (21 earned runs) in 25 2/3 innings for an ERA of 7.36 with a 1.60 WHIP.

In his first 22 starts of the season through July 30, Burnes did not allow five runs in a single start. Now he has done that four times his past five games.

Not too long after Ohtani and his dog took part in the first pitch where Decoy fetched the ball on the mound and brought it to Ohtani at the plate, the Japanese-born slugger hit homer No. 42.

He led off the first with a blast off a 1-2 slider that went 391 feet to right for his third homer in five games and his seventh in the last 15. Ohtani has now hit nine homers in 28 career games off Baltimore pitching.

The O’s erased that deficit and gave Burnes the lead by scoring three in the top of the second. The Dodgers provided the O’s a rally when Ryan O’Hearn reached on an E5 and Cedric Mullins struck out but reached on a wild pitch. The pitch bounced, catcher Will Smith reacted late and Mullins beat the throw. That proved big when Ramón Urías doubled to right to score both runners for a 2-1 edge. Catcher James McCann flared a single to right with two outs for a 3-1 Baltimore lead.

Urías, who hit a two-run go-ahead homer last night, has driven in seven runs his past three games.

Los Angeles erased the two-run deficit with a four-run inning to lead 5-3 in the third.

With one out, Urías was charged with an error as No. 9 hitter Kiké Hernández reached. Singles by Ohtani and Mookie Betts followed, Betts scoring Hernández and the O’s lead was 3-2. One out later, Teoscar Hernández had a swing that was pivotal in this game. He blasted a three-run shot to left and the Dodgers led 5-3.

Teoscar Hernandez hit No. 28 on a 2-2 curve that he blasted 113.3 mph and hit 431 feet. It was just the third time this year in 27 starts that Burnes allowed two homers in a game.

The runs were all unearned due in third due to the Urías error.

With their lead cut to 5-4 on O’Hearn’s RBI double in the fifth, the Dodgers produced another run that was unearned to lead 6-4.

Ohtani reached on a fielder’s choice and then stole second advancing to third on an error by McCann. He scored from third with two outs when shortstop Gunnar Henderson misplayed a grounder by Gavin Lux.

Los Angeles starter Walker Buehler allowed five hits and four runs (two earned) over 4 2/3 innings. 

The O's tied a season high with three errors tonight for the third time this season. 

One night after an uplifting win where the pitching came up big, the O's suffer an ugly loss with their ace struggling again. They'll try to win this series in the final game of three at Dodger Stadium tomorrow night. 

A few postgame quotes.

Manager Brandon Hyde on if the pitching or defense was a bigger issue: “We’re going to make errors. We made a couple errors tonight that led to some runs. But had some opportunities to get out of it, too. I thought Burnsie had good stuff again. Give Ohtani credit for that first homer. Breaking ball down and away that he hits out. Just made a two-out bad pitch to (Teoscar) Hernández there after getting him to two strikes.

“They gave us a couple of runs there early also. I thought we had some good ABs. Didn’t do much from the middle of the game on offensively. Yeah, it wasn’t our cleanest game."

More Hyde on Burnes' night: “He only gave up that one earned run, the Ohtani homer. Pitched much better than the line. Like I said, we didn’t play our cleanest defensively. We had some chances to get out of innings. But we’re not scoring a ton of runs either and helping our guys out."

Burnes on how would he evaluate his night: “Yeah, I think it was a step in the right direction. We threw the ball pretty well. Cutter command was better again today and got it down in the zone. Think we took a positive step there with some swing and miss and some weak contact. Yeah, that inning, obviously stuff got away from us a little bit. Threw some extra pitches and made a mistake in the zone and he didn’t miss. Really the two pitches on the home runs balls tonight are kind of what changed that game. For the most part, I thought I threw the ball pretty well. Lot of weak contact outside of the two mistakes. Just have to go out there and do what I can do."