Orioles handled the pressure and the Tigers

DETROIT – The pressure was most definitely on the Orioles Saturday night at Comerica Park. On this night, they stood up to it with an important and impressive 4-2 win over a hot Detroit Tigers team that had won 21 of 30 coming into play.

The O’s were three games back of the Yankees for the division lead and Kansas City had pulled within two games for the top American League wild card seed.

They needed a win to gain a game on one team after the Yankees lost Saturday afternoon and hold off another. Now they are two back of the Yankees and two up on the Royals.

They were 2-6 over the last eight games and not scoring much. The clubhouse was trying to stay together and avoid the outside criticism the team was getting.

After the win Saturday, catcher James McCann said they have stayed strong as a team.

“I think it’s just the tight-knit group that we have here. Guys truly love each other, there’s no one pointing fingers. There’s no one blaming people for making mistakes or not coming through in a big spot. Guys really love each other and we like to show up to the ballpark and play together. We push each other. We know that things haven’t gone our way but it hasn’t defined us here in the clubhouse, we continue to have each other’s backs,” he said.

Right-hander Corbin Burnes pitched seven scoreless on two hits. He continues to distance himself from his poor August and now has an ERA of 1.57 his past four start. Last night was, surprisingly, his first scoreless start of the year.

“Yeah, that’s what your ace does, right?” said McCann. “That’s what your No. 1 does, stops the bleeding. He gave us a chance to win and thankfully our breakthrough in whatever inning it was gave us a little bit of a cushion. Burnes threw the ball extremely well today.”

It was the fourth straight quality start by the rotation with an ERA of 1.01 in this span and sixth in eight games with an ERA of 2.20 in that stretch.

Seldom-used Livan Soto got the start at second base and went 2-for-4 with several nice plays on defense. His double in the seventh was big as a 1-0 O's lead turned into a 4-0 advantage.

“I like his at-bats,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “It’s a simple swing, ball (he hit) in the corner was a huge hit at the time. Played really good defense, made a couple of really nice plays, so yeah, I haven’t seen him play very much. We didn’t see him in camp. He was waived so early. I thought he had a couple of good at-bats in Boston. He had a great game for us tonight.”

Said Soto via translator Brandon Quinones: “Yeah, incredibly exciting. You know, that’s why I work hard every day to be ready for the opportunity when it presents itself. Most importantly, we got the win tonight. Thought we all played really well and we had a really good game tonight.”

No homer note: Usually when a batter hasn’t homered in a while we talk about his homerless drought. Pitcher Cionel Pérez has a homerless streak, in terms of not giving up a longball. His outing last night made it 97 straight games without yielding one since June 3, 2023. That is the longest such streak in Orioles history and the longest in Major League Baseball since Kansas City's Wade Davis (96, 6/18/14- 7/10/15).

Pérez has gone 81 1/3 straight homerless innings, which is the third longest in team history and the longest since Zack Britton went 85 1/3 from April 15, 2016 to Aug. 10, 2017.

The O’s can win this series at 12:10 p.m. today at Comerica Park as they continue to try and gain on the Yankees and hold off the Royals.

There is also an NFL game today at Ford Field right next to Comerica, so send good thoughts for your O's beat reporters today as they try both to get to the game and then the airport later to get home. Fingers crossed. 

Camps begin in Florida: The Orioles will hold several Sarasota-based camps in the coming weeks for further instruction and coaching for some of their young talent in their farm system.

The first of these camps is now underway at the O’s spring training home and runs through Sept. 28.

According to the team, these camps will not use the traditional instructional league model and instead will focus on weight room training and skill development. These camps are not open to the public. The O’s will provide more info on future camps closer to those start dates, which are TBD right now.

The current camp features several 2024 draft picks and also some top international talent.

The 19 position players participating in this first camp are:

Catchers: Ethan Anderson, Miguel Rodríguez, Ryan Stafford, Andrew Tess, Colin Tuft.

Infielders: Luis Almeyda, Leandro Arias, Elis Cuevas, Aron Estrada, DJ Layton, Griff O’Ferrall.

Outfielders: Dylan Beavers, Enrique Bradfield, Jud Fabian, Nate George, Vance Honeycutt, Austin Overn, Thomas Sosa, Braylon Whitaker.

There are 10 pitchers at this camp: Trace Bright, Nestor German, Miguel Mesa, Keeler Morfe, Alex Pham, Iziah Salinas. Ty Weatherly, Levi Wells, Cam Weston, Pete Van Loon.