Orioles rally in eighth, end losing streak at 19 games (updated)

The old reverse lock theory is supposed to have its limits.

A team riding a 19-game losing streak, its last victory on Aug. 2, and resorting to a bullpen tactic rather than using a starting pitcher, already is operating from an extreme disadvantage.

The bench had two healthy players. The best hitter in 2021 fell into an August slump.

The Orioles needed to catch a monumental break last night. Instead, they got Shohei Ohtani - on the mound and in the Angels lineup. An anchor tossed to a club with the water rising above its ears.

Joe Namath, Buster Douglas and the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team weren't touching this one.

Ohtani struck out in the top of the first against Chris Ellis, making his Orioles debut and first major league start. Cedric Mullins homered on Ohtani's first pitch in the bottom half and Anthony Santander reached the right field seats with two outs. Maybe this really would be the night.

The Angels tied the score quickly in the second, Jared Walsh led off the fourth with a home run that removed Ellis from the game and Brandon Marsh's first major league homer later in the inning was a three-run shot off Marcos Diplán. Maybe the lock was a fraud and nothing would change.

The Orioles pulled within a run in the seventh, took the lead in the eighth on a pair of bases-loaded walks, got two more runs on Austin Hays' pinch-hit double and formed the long-awaited congratulatory handshake line with a 10-6 win over the Angels before an announced crowd of 15,867 at Camden Yards. The streak was toast before it reached 20 games. The music could blare again in the clubhouse. Party like it isn't 1988.

DJ Stewart accounted for the third home run off Ohtani through four innings, and a team criticized for its impatience at the plate and inability to draw walks did the opposite and the Orioles improved to 39-86. They avoided a 20th straight defeat that would have been the most since the 1969 Expos also strung together 20 in 1969, the franchise's first season in the majors. Montreal won 52 games that season.

The Orioles will cherish their 39th, the dugout and crowd erupting in unison on the Hays' double.

"I think I said this in Buffalo once before, but it felt like postseason pressure," said manager Brandon Hyde. "I just told Mike (Elias) I've never experienced a middle of August game with a couple teams that aren't in the postseason hunt ... There was tension in our dugout, there was pressure. Everybody was on the top step. Our guys just really wanted this one. We're tired of hearing, tired of seeing it on TV. Everybody's tired of it."

There's no longer any need to talk about the club and American League record of 21 losses in a row as Keegan Akin starts Thursday afternoon.

It will be getaway day for the Angels. The Orioles finally figured out how to escape the succession of defeats and constant disappointment.

"It's tough," said Trey Mancini, "but at the same time, it's up to us to go out there and win a game so it's not talked about."

"The clubhouse is loud right now," Hyde said. "There's a lot of people that are very excited, relieved. It's good to hear our guys feel good about the game they just played. I'm real excited about how we played, we played real good baseball tonight. And this is a lot of relief for sure. It's been really, really difficult."

Jahmai Jones led off the seventh with his first Orioles hit, a ground ball up the middle against Mike Mayers. Kelvin Gutiérrez was hit on the left hand, Austin Wynns laid down a sacrifice bunt and Mullins' ground ball off Jake Petricka cut the lead to 6-5. Ryan Mountcastle struck out with the tying run at third base.

Mancini singled into center field off Petricka to begin the eighth and went to third base on Santander's double into the right field corner. Stewart was given an intentional walk, Ramón Urías drew a four-pitch walk to tie the game and Gutiérrez walked with the count full against James Hoyt.

Hays, in a 4-for-29 slump in his last eight games, batted for Wynns and doubled. Mullins' sacrifice fly gave the Orioles a 10-6 lead and removed the save situation from Rule 5 pick Tyler Wells.

They sent 10 batters to the plate, walked four times and finally could feel good about the sport again.

In a desperate act to break the spell and remove the bad mojo, Mancini - already wearing a mustache he despised - burned sage in the clubhouse and brought it onto the field during batting practice.

Wynns had the idea, ordered it online and joined Mancini in distributing it. Perhaps creating baseball's first sage situation.

"A couple days ago, we were saying that we needed to do something just to switch up the mojo," Mancini said. "A couple different ideas were brought up. ... He and I just walked around the ballpark and just saged everything we possibly could. Just took it around, took a good 15 minutes to walk around and make sure we took our time and did it right, and, yeah, it worked."

"It smelled kind of weird," said Mullins, who shaved in an attempt to break the streak, "but the sage kicked in."

"I saw him wafting it around the batting cage while I was hitting," Mullins said. "I looked at him and was like, 'Smart man.' "

"It was surprising," Hyde said. "I'm sitting in my office and I walk outside and there was an aroma coming into the hallway, and I saw Mancini and his mustache and asked him, 'Are we smoking some different type of cigarettes, or what's happening in our clubhouse?' And then he explained it to me.

"I think sage tomorrow. Who knows? I think the mustache is already gone. I said, 'We have a winning streak. How can you shave the mustache?' "

Said Ellis: "I thought it was like a Pedro Cerrano move out of 'Major League.' It was pretty funny. I was sitting at my locker kind of just going over the lineup for the day and I saw Trey Mancini walking through there with a bunch of sage. Everybody's getting a whiff of it. Maybe we'll have to start doing that before every game."

Ellis allowed three runs and five hits in three-plus innings against the team that drafted him, with no walks and three strikeouts - two coming against Ohtani. He threw 38 pitches, 26 for strikes, and his fastball was 94-95 mph.

Mullins was 5-for-40 with 11 strikeouts in his previous 10 games, but he jumped on a 93-mph fastball and took it for a 415-foot ride for his seventh leadoff homer of the season - tied with Brady Anderson (1999, 2000) for second in club history. Anderson holds the record with 12 in 1996.

Santander had four hits last night, including two doubles and a Eutaw Street home run. Tonight's assault on a 93.3 mph fastball gave him four homers in his last four games and eight in 15. He has seven hits in the series.

The Orioles have hit 32 homers this month, 28 solo and none with runners in scoring position. Ohtani allowed only eight before tonight and never more than one in a game.

Never more than one in his first 30 major league starts.

Santander led off the fourth with a single and Stewart hit an opposite-field shot to reduce the lead to 6-4.

Ohtani allowed four runs and five hits with no walks and seven strikeouts in five innings. He also struck out three times to raise his series total to five.

Tonight marked only the third time in 19 starts that Ohtani surrendered four runs or more. He allowed seven over his previous six.

Ellis couldn't produce a shutdown inning in the second and the lead was gone after three batters. He drilled José Iglesias on the left hand with a 94 mph fastball and gave up a double to Max Stassi and two-run single to Marsh.

The Angels assisted Ellis by running into two outs after tying the game. Wynns threw out Marsh trying to steal and Mullins nabbed Jo Adell trying to stretch a single into a double.

Wynns is 10-for-18 throwing out runners attempting to steal.

Ellis retired the side in order with two strikeouts in the third and Diplán stopped warming in the bullpen. But Ellis had only one pitch left, a 94-mph fastball that Walsh turned into his 23rd home run and a 3-2 Angels lead.

Diplán allowed his first earned run in eight outings last night and didn't retire any of the four batters faced tonight. Iglesias doubled, Stassi walked and Marsh hit his first major league home run, an opposite-field shot that also was the first surrendered by Diplán.

An infield hit brought Hyde out of the dugout and Conner Greene retired the next three batters.

Greene, recalled today, offered two scoreless and hitless innings. Cole Sulser struck out two in a scoreless sixth. Dillon Tate stranded a runner in the seventh after a two-out walk and retired the first batter in the eight before Tanner Scott entered and got the next two outs on a strikeout and excellent diving stop and throw by Gutiérrez to rob Adell.

Wells retired the side in order in the ninth. Players rushed onto the field as fans roared their approval, a fly ball to right field ending the misery.

"It's electric in there," Mullins said. "We're coming off a crazy streak and just continuing to grind every single day. I know it looked like it was going to be the big 2-0 today, but we fought back, continued to grind, was able to hold them for a few innings and came out with a win."

Mullins didn't allow himself to think the streak was over until Santander caught the last ball put in play.

"There's no safe leads," he said, "especially at Camden."

"When the ball went up to Santander is when I felt that," Hyde said. "I'm not celebrating too soon, that's for sure. I've seen funny things happen in this game and we've lost some games that we had in hand in the ninth inning over the last three years."

Mancini and Gutiérrez embraced behind the mound as teammates high-fived.

Something magic finally happened.

"This has been a really challenging year, incredibly hard three weeks," Hyde said. "These guys have dealt with a lot. Even though there's low expectations or rebuilding or whatever you want to call it, it's not fun to lose and it's not fun to get beat. You want to show your fans that the big league club is going to be fun to watch and we're going to be pretty good in a couple years and there are some pieces that are coming, etc. That's what's been disappointing. You want to give the fans something to cheer about."

It wasn't 45,000 fans tonight, "but it felt like it," Hyde said. "There was great energy in the ballpark. As soon as Cedric hit that homer. It was a loud crowd, there was a lot of orange and our guys fed off that, too."

Notes: Triple-A Norfolk's Kevin Smith allowed three runs and six hits with three walks and four strikeouts in 3 1/3 innings.

Terrin Vavra homered and doubled tonight for Double-A Bowie. Knuckleballer Mickey Jannis allowed four runs and eight hits, including two homers, in five innings.

Single-A Aberdeen's Zach Peek allowed one run and three hits with no walks and seven strikeouts over five innings in Game 1 of a doubleheader.

Colton Cowser and Connor Norby both had two hits and an RBI with Single-A Delmarva. Ty Blach tossed two scoreless innings on his injury rehab assignment. Shane Davis allowed one run and one hit in four relief innings.