Bad luck and one bad pitch doom Means in 13-2 loss (updated)

The first major league start for Orioles left-hander John Means got silly before it grew ugly.

Three infield hits in the second inning, along with a ground ball turned into an out and another grounder that produced a critical error. The grass took more of a beating than Means.

It wasn't until Marcus Semien jumped on a changeup and cleared the fence in left that the Athletics finally directed a ball out of the infield.

Means was down by five runs, four of them unearned, and the Orioles tumbled below .500 again with a 13-2 loss before an announced crowd of 7,738 at Camden Yards.

Nate Karns and Alex Cobb going on the injured list was a bad omen. The Orioles needed a reset and couldn't find the button.

Richard Bleier and Miguel Castro each were charged with four runs over a combined three innings. Castro balked twice in the ninth and received mock applause for a strikeout that ended the inning.

Following up three stellar relief appearances, Means threw 60 pitches in three innings and turned over the game to Evan Phillips. Means retired the side in order in the third on only 11 pitches to leave on a high note.

Catcher Pedro Severino helped Means in the first inning by gathering a changeup in the dirt and throwing out Stephen Piscotty at second base for the final out. Means couldn't help himself in the second, failing to snag Khris Davis' bouncer near the mound or cover the bag, perhaps a miscommunication with first baseman Rio Ruiz.

Means ran down Chad Pinder's roller along the third base line and had no play, putting two runners on base with no outs. He went upstairs with a 92 mph fastball to strike out Matt Canha with the count full and Richie Martin charged Ramón Laureano's grounder and threw him out.

The escape almost complete, Means watched as Martin could only backhand Jurickson Profar's grounder in the hole and make a late, leaping throw to first as Davis scored. Pinder followed him across the plate when Hanser Alberto made a wide throw to first and Josh Phegley slid underneath Ruiz's sweeping tag attempt.

Ruiz was making his second major league start at first base, but his 40th as a professional.

Semien followed with his three-run shot, the only legit contact made against Means.

The Orioles ran themselves out of the third inning while trailing 5-0, burned by the same aggressive approach that fuels them.

Martin walked and Jonathan Villar singled to create a rally against left-hander Brett Anderson. Joey Rickard poked an 0-2 pitch into center field and third base coach José Flores sent Martin, who was thrown out by a considerable margin, missing the plate and unable to dance around Phegley's tag.

The bases should have been loaded with no outs for Trey Mancini, one of baseball's hottest hitters who singled in his first at-bat.

A double steal attempt backfired when Phegley threw out Rickard at second base, and Mancini flied to the center field fence.

Laureano picked up his fourth outfield assist in 15 games this season and 13th in 61. No advance report suggests running on him. He had the ball as Martin touched third base. Martin has zero chance to score unless Phegley passed out.

Phillips arrived today as Cobb's replacement and tossed three scoreless innings. He allowed one hit, walked a batter and struck out four.

The Orioles weren't posing any sort of threat to the lead, with Anderson retiring 11 batters in a row following Rickard's single. And Profar greeted Bleier by homering on the left-hander's first pitch in the seventh inning.

Dwight Smith Jr. snapped Anderson's streak with a single into right field with one out in the seventh - he reached on a bunt single earlier in the game - and Alberto singled into left to extend his hitting streak to a career-high seven games. Ruiz struck out, but Laureano couldn't hold onto Severino's deep fly ball to right-center field that went for a two-run double, reduced the lead to 6-2 and ended Anderson's night.

Executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias and manager Brandon Hyde wanted more athleticism and versatility on the roster. There were five position changes in top of eighth due to Cedric Mullins pinch-hitting for Martin in the bottom of the seventh.

Mullins lined softly to second base against reliever Lou Trivino and the Athletics scored four runs in the top of the eighth to lead 10-2.

Castro inherited a bases-loaded mess from Bleier and let all three inherited runners score along with one run of his own. Castro has been scored upon in his last four outings and he surrendered three more runs in the ninth on Laureano's two-run single and Profar's RBI single off the out-of-town scoreboard in right.

Castro has a 11.57 ERA and one minor league option if the Orioles get in a bullpen bind.

Bleier was charged with a career-high four runs in 1 1/3 innings to raise his ERA to 14.54.

Hyde will be asked again about the state of his 'pen with left-hander Josh Rogers expected to take Cobb's turn Wednesday night. Rogers was scratched from his start today with Triple-A Norfolk.

Update: Dan Straily will start Wednesday night, with Rogers recalled to back him up.

"It's not full-go because (Straily) just threw (Sunday)," Hyde said. "We just called up Rogers, so Rogers will be here tomorrow to give us a little bit of depth. He's going to be limited because of the short notice and just threw a few days ago."

Cobb has back spasms that forced him on the injured list.

"He felt good yesterday," Hyde said. "Then today he went out and threw and his back tightened up on him a little bit. He had some back spasms and so we're pushing him back. Obviously, we're putting him on the IL and we'll replace him.

"Hopefully when the 10 days are up he's ready to go."

Hyde on why he chose Straily: "Because we feel comfortable with Dan starting tomorrow and Dan's going to slide into the rotation anyways and Rogers will be behind him."

Hyde on why Rogers was recalled: "We need some length. We like the way he pitched in spring training and he's obviously built up so he can give us some length after Dan. That's why we called him up."

Hyde on Means: "I thought John threw the ball great. They just got some squibber hits on him, just an unfortunate inning for us. He threw the ball really, really well. He was locating his fastball. Just got a lot of mishit singles that kind of kept the inning going, but it was unfortunate.

"He had really good stuff. He had a really good changeup again, located his fastball well, had both sides of the plate, had them off-balance. Just one of those nights where they got a few infield singles on them."

Hyde on Flores sending Martin and other aggressive mistakes: "Those things happen. Obviously it's one that Flo would like to have back, but we've been preaching aggressiveness and Laureano can really, really throw. We know that. Unbelievable throw.

"I haven't looked at the replay yet to see if Richie hesitated at all around third or what happened there. That's going to happen again. That's a really tough job in a tough position there. He's got a really, really fast baserunner there at second. Looked like he had a good read, but I haven't seen the replay on what happened.

"We had a rough inning there where they had some chopper singles early. We had an opportunity in the bottom half. Ran ourselves out of an inning with Trey up with a double steal there. That's a learning lesson for our guys and understanding when to be aggressive and understanding backside runner against Anderson. So we got a little too aggressive there at times. Just one of those nights where a lot of things didn't work out."

Hyde on whether concern about Bleier and Castro: "I thought Rich's velo was good tonight, I thought he stayed strong throughout. I don't think he's getting the shape of the pitches that he would like. I thought he threw some really good sinkers and some good cutters. Profar kind of ambushed him there early. He ambushed Castro, also. But I think Rich is still feeling his way.

"It's been a while. He's coming off a pretty major injury and we're just going to be patient with him. Still getting a feel for coming back off of injury and I just think the shape of his pitchers, that's what he's frustrated with a little bit.

"Castro's got such good stuff and when you throw 97 mph sinkers and you've got a 90 mph slider behind it, it's really about being able to locate and pitching ahead. I think he gets side to side a little bit and guys may be able to pick him up a little bit early, but when he stays closed and he stays on top, that sinker is devastating. Just got underneath the ball too many times tonight."

Hyde on whether Means is an option to start again: "Yeah, he is. Especially with Cobb now going on the DL, look for him to start. This Cobb thing just happened pregame, so we'll look at the calendar and see where to slide him in."

Hyde on whether it will be hard to stretch out Means: "I don't think it's difficult because he threw a lot of pitches in New York and we were trying to get four or five innings out of him tonight. That inning hurt him obviously with 30-plus pitches that inning, but, yeah, I think John's really resilient. He's been a starter in the past.

"This was his first major league start and I thought a lot of positives came out of it and we're going to slide him in there at some point to replace Alex."

Means on outing: "I felt pretty good. I felt I was locating pretty well. I was getting soft contact for the most part. I had a lot of teammates come up to me and say they've never seen anything like that with all of those infield base hits. But I felt good, I felt solid. That's all you can really look at it at this point."

Means on the home run ball: "That was the only mistake pitch that I had. In those long innings, when you're out there for a while, you're tired and you leave that one pitch up and can't let the big damage happen, especially in this division."

Means on whether he's ever experienced that much soft contact: "Not really. I'm usually a flyball pitcher, so to get all those groundball hits is kind of new to me. Now, with this changeup that I'm using, I'm getting more ground balls to our infielders. No, I'm pretty new to it."