O's woes grow with 7-4 loss in Game 1 (updated)

Games shortened to seven innings aren't capable right now of preventing losing streaks from growing.

The Orioles must hope that they don't run out of ideas.

Another early lead for the Orioles was erased in rapid fashion today after Freddy Galvis hit the first of his two home runs off White Sox left-hander Dallas Keuchel in the first inning.

A single by José Abreu tied the game in the first. A pair of Matt Harvey walks and a wild pitch to open the third were followed by Abreu's two-run single. Jake Lamb drilled a two-run homer later in the inning, and the direction of another game had been established, with the Orioles losing 7-4 in the opener of a doubleheader.

Maikel Franco homered in the fourth and Galvis ran his season total to nine in the fifth, but the Orioles dropped to 17-34 overall with their 11th defeat in a row and 18th out of 20.

At least they have John Means in the nightcap. But the White Sox have Lance Lynn.

Yoán Moncada hit a two-run homer off Shawn Armstrong in the sixth, a leadoff walk to Tim Anderson also problematic. The ball traveled 422 feet with a 110.8 mph exit velocity, per Statcast, and Armstrong's ERA was 8.35.

Harvey has lost his last five decisions after winning three straight. He allowed five runs and five hits in three-plus innings with three walks and six strikeouts, and his ERA grew to 6.84.

"That's the big thing is right now I feel good throwing every pitch and things are really just not going our way in general," Harvey said in his Zoom call. "I missed a couple pitches over the middle that really cost us and cost me today. Last two starts, I felt like I had much better stuff than he even had at the beginning of the season. It's just kind of one of those things that's extremely frustrating when you know you have good stuff, you're just not really locating as well as you need to be and not keeping runs off the board."

Tyler Nevin made his major league debut this afternoon and went 1-for-2 with a walk and strikeout. He lined an automatic double to right field on the second pitch thrown to him, a changeup on the outer half of the plate.

Nevin was in last night's lineup after the Orioles recalled him from Triple-A Norfolk, but the postponement put his debut on hold. Clear skies today allowed him to take a normal batting practice and field ground balls, a benefit of the unexpected open date on the schedule.

Ryan Mountcastle returned to the lineup and collected his first career triple in the fourth after Franco's home run, and he scored on Pat Valaika's bouncer to short to cut the lead to 5-3. Nevin walked and was stranded.

Anthony Santander extended his hitting streak to 10 games in the first inning when he followed Galvis' home run with a double, but Keuchel retired the next two batters on a ground ball and pop up.

The Orioles had gone 4-for-44 (.091) with runners in scoring position in their last four games and were hitting .224 (87-for-389) for the season, the second-lowest average in the American League behind the Indians (.216) and the fifth-lowest in the majors. Their .630 OPS with RISP was the lowest in the league and second-worst in the majors behind the Pirates (.601).

A MASN graphic before the game showed that the Orioles were batting .286 with RISP in their wins and .189 in their losses.

They were 0-for-3 today through the second inning and 0-4 after the fourth, though Valaika brought home Mountcastle.

Manager Brandon Hyde sounded a sympathetic tone for Harvey yesterday, talking about "bad luck starts," questionable ball-strike calls and shoddy defense behind him.

"We've elongated innings and not helped him out on the mound," Hyde said, "which has shortened his outings and produced more runs than he should have given up."

The baseball gods messed with Harvey again by giving him umpire Ángel Hernández behind the plate. Tossing a drowning man an anchor.

The only comfort for the Orioles came in knowing that Hernández is bad for both sides.

Harvey thought he struck out Abreu in the first, didn't get the call and surrendered a game-tying single. He threw 33 pitches in the inning, followed by 17 in the second and 36 in the third.

Yasmani Grandal, batting .140, and Moncada walked in the third and moved up on the wild pitch. Abreu lined a single down the right field line and the White Sox led 3-1.

Yermín Mercedes struck out and Lamb homered on a 93.7 mph fastball.

Nevin's fielding error in the fourth ended Harvey's day at 88 pitches. Nevin made a sliding backhanded stop on Nick Madigal's grounder and lost the ball on the transfer, bringing 27th man Travis Lakins Sr. into the game.

Harvey has allowed 23 runs and 29 hits in his last four starts totaling 13 2/3 innings for a 15.22 ERA.

"Today I thought he had really good stuff to start the game," Hyde said. "Thought he had a good second inning. Third inning, a groundball single, just made some bad pitches there in that third inning. Balls were elevated, two-seamer that caught a lot of the plate there with Lamb. Just had a tough time finishing hitters."

Said Harvey: "Mechanically, I feel great. I get out of it here and there, but kind of get back on track and really limit it to only a couple pitches that I just don't feel great on. Stuff's there, it's just that sometimes I'm not locating to the spot that I need to hit and they're making good swings on it or fouling pitches off and making the pitch count go up, so it's frustrating, but got to keep working."

Lakins stranded the inherited runner and one of his own after a walk and Pedro Severino throwing error, which came on ball four.

Galvis cleared the center field fence in the fifth inning for his fourth career multi-homer game, reducing the lead to 5-4. His nine home runs are two behind team leader Trey Mancini.

Here's the Game 2 lineup:

Cedric Mullins CF
Freddy Galvis SS
Anthony Santander DH
DJ Stewart RF
Maikel Franco 3B
Stevie Wilkerson 2B
Ryan Mountcastle 1B
Chance Sisco C
Ryan McKenna LF

John Means LHP