Another one-run loss, plus Friday on the farm

That's four games on the road trip and four one-run games with three losses for the Orioles. Very competitive yet again, they did some good things but failed to win.

Thanks to an error and a few timely hits, they took a 3-0 lead on Houston right-hander Gerrit Cole through four innings. Rio Ruiz had a clutch two-out, bases-loaded single in the first. Chance Sisco hit his first homer of the year and fifth of his career in the third.

Sisco did a nice job to wait on a curveball over the outside corner and drive it out to left field. He now has five career homers in 220 plate appearances. That jibes somewhat with the assessments of scouts who believed he'd hit 10-15 homers with everyday playing time. It was his 11th home run this year over 47 games between Triple-A and the majors.

Right-hander Gabriel Ynoa gave the Orioles a very solid effort, turning in four scoreless innings. It was the fifth frame when Houston hit two homers in a four-batter span to tie the game 3-3. They would win it 4-3 in the last of the 11th.

O's executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias yesterday was back in Houston, where he helped the Astros produce a club good enough to win the 2017 World Series.

Now he's trying to build something special in Baltimore, all the while remaining patient and disciplined in his decisions now, in the early stages of a multi-year rebuild.

"I learned patience (in Houston)," he said. "We went through some really tough years, tough episodes here. This isn't easy and that stuff's going to happen, and I think what we did was just consistently made decisions that were good for the franchise, even if we knew we were going to take some heat, even though we knew we were going to take some lumps. We knew there was going to be some short-term pain, but we kept our eye on the ball and made long-range decisions for the goal of the franchise. That takes some discipline and it takes some thick skin at times, and hopefully I can capitalize on that in this experience.

"We've got stiffer competition in our division," he said. "It's not easy. So we're just going to do the best that we can, make the best decisions that we can, and when it happens, it will happen. And I'm confident that it will happen and we will turn the corner at some point."

Friday on the farm: Single-A Delmarva lost 5-1 at home to Hagerstown Friday night to fall to 45-15. But when second-place Greensboro lost a doubleheader, the Shorebirds' magic number to clinch first place in the first half was reduced from five to three.

Right-hander Ofelky Peralta allowed six hits and four runs over four innings. He is 4-1 with a 2.55 ERA. Adam Hall went 2-for-4 and is batting .333. He recorded his team-leading 24th multi-hit game. JC Encarnacion hit a solo home run, his fifth homer of 2019. Delmarva will finish with the best half in their 23 years as an Orioles' affiliate.

Columbus beat Triple-A Norfolk, 5-1. Christopher Bostick hit his third homer in two games with a solo shot in a 2-for-4 night. It was No. 8. Mark Trumbo, continuing his rehab assignment, went 1-for-3 with a double. Joey Rickard went 0-for-3 and saw a seven-game hitting streak snapped. Ryan Mountcastle went 0-for-4 and is batting .313. Mountcastle, who leads all O's farmhands with 11 homers and 41 RBI's, was batting .328 his previous 13 games, with six homers and 18 RBIs.

Bowie lost 10-3 at Double-A Portland as right-hander Hunter Harvey allowed nine hits and eight runs over four innings. His ERA is now 6.12. Over his past six starts, Harvey has allowed one or no earned runs or three times. But he also has made two starts in which he's allowed seven and eight earned runs.

Outfielder Ryan McKenna went 3-for-5 with an RBI and raised his average to .226. McKenna is 7-for-14 his past three games. Rylan Bannon went 3-for-4 with an RBI and is batting .275. Yusniel Diaz went 1-for-4 with a triple and an RBI. Austin Hays was hitless in four at-bats.

Single-A Frederick lost 3-2 at Down East in 10 innings. Down East, at 43-18, has the second-best record in all of the minors, behind Delmarva. The Keys fell to 28-31 and have lost five in a row.

Right-hander David Lebron threw well, allowing three hits and one run over five innings and recording six strikeouts. Over their past 39 games, Keys starting pitchers have an ERA of 2.60 with 208 strikeouts over 190 2/3 innings.