Urías sprains ankle in Orioles' 7-5 loss

DENVER – The Orioles lost one game and two more players tonight.

Infielder Ramón Urías has a sprained right ankle. He was on crutches in the clubhouse following the Rockies’ 7-5 win at Coors Field.

Urías and Dean Kremer, who was hit by a line drive on the lower right forearm, will be re-evaluated Sunday.

Kremer has a contusion after X-rays came back negative for a fracture, but the length of his potential absence is unknown tonight.

Urías took a beating. Ryan Feltner hit him on the nose with a 93.8 mph sinker in the fifth inning, but Urías turned away in time to avoid flush contact and stayed in the game.

“Just like it skimmed his nose but he felt it,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “So a tough night for him.”

It got much worse in the seventh when Urías rolled his ankle on the bag as Ezequiel Tovar stole third base. Emmanuel Rivera replaced him.

Kremer lasted 3 1/3 innings before Jordan Beck’s 103.1 mph line drive tonight nailed him above his wrist and created a massive welt. Another blow to a team that thought its rotation was getting healthier with Zach Eflin’s return Sunday.

“It was scary, too, right away,” Hyde said. “It was swelling up right away. But we’re really fortunate X-rays were negative and so obviously it’s gonna be a little bit to get the swelling down. We’ll see how it goes.”

Kremer and Urías weren’t available to the media. Urías was at his locker but summoned back into the trainers’ room, needing assistance to gather his crutches and right shoe.

“Yeah, very frustrating,” said first baseman Ryan O’Hearn, who tied the game in the fifth with a two-run single but watched two more teammates go down. “Ramón has been, I don’t want to say carrying us, but close to it over the last week or so, and then maybe even more going back. But, yeah, hopefully it's nothing serious, and we get him back soon. We get Westy (Jordan Westburg) back, we’ll get Mounty (Ryan Mountcastle) back, Zach is coming back tomorrow. We have reinforcements on the way at some point and I think that, in the meantime, we’ve got to find a way to scratch and win games, and maybe we will.

“I don’t want to say that there's not a sense of urgency because there is. I think maybe defensively late in games, I think we got to be a little sharper. We got to have a little bit more of a sense of urgency. We got a chance to win the series tomorrow and that's the goal. Show up tomorrow, win a game, win the series, take some momentum going back home and get hot in September, have some guys come back and that's the plan. That's all you can do.”

The Orioles kept battling but fell to 78-59, staying 1 ½ games behind the Yankees, after Craig Kimbrel surrendered a one-out double to Nolan Jones in the eighth, an RBI single to Beck and a run-scoring ground ball from Drew Romo.

“He got the first out and then double that we didn’t really get to, and just left some pitches elevated,” Hyde said.

“We fought back. Love to see us try to push some more runs against their bullpen there late in the game. Turned into a bullpen game for us because Dean, short outing for him. We just had a tough eighth inning.”

The ninth also hurt after Cedric Mullins reached third base with no outs, Gunnar Henderson was hit on the foot with two down and Tyler Kinley struck out his third batter of the inning.

“We've got a good team,” O’Hearn said. “We have good hitters and, in this ballpark, things happen fast. Runs happen fast. I’ve seen crazy games in this ballpark. Seems like a game lasts five hours because there's always guys on base, there's always runs being scored and the ball is flying and all that. So, I think that's one thing when you come here and you play at this field. It's like, you're not ever out of it. You're down a couple runs in the middle innings and you just got to keep going, keep grinding out at-bats and hitting the ball hard and, yeah, that’s it.”

Injuries keep mounting and attempts to catch the Yankees are rebuffed.

“Yeah, it sucks,” O’Hearn said. “I don't want to see Dean get smoked by a line drive or Urías hurt his (ankle) or any of that. It's not football, but injuries happen in this game, obviously, over the course of the season. A lot of crazy things happen on a baseball field and it's just kind of a freak thing, those two plays, and we hope those guys are going to be back sooner rather than later.

“We have to take it one game at a time. Compete, show up, compete, battle. I mean this time of year obviously there’s so much emphasis on each and every game, especially when we are in this tight race. I think that our guys are ready for it. I think you have to have that kind of edge when you show up on pitch one. Take it one day at a time, that’s really all we can do.”

Dreams of getting the roster back to its intended construction keep fading. The Orioles are doing their best to avoid doing the same.

“Yeah, I mean, but you can say that about a lot of teams,” O’Hearn said. “I think you can say that every team experiences injuries. I think it’s a bit of an excuse, to be honest. I don’t know any team that goes through an entire season and only uses 26 guys. Think guys understand that going into spring training. There’s obviously been a lot of moving parts here but the ultimate goal is to win and to have the Baltimore Orioles win the East, go to the playoffs and do what we’re capable of. So I think it’s encouraging that we have guys coming back in September.

“I look back to the beginning of the season when we were pretty much at full strength, full health. That offense, that team was steamrolling teams. My hope is that come September we get some pieces back and guys continue to compete and we are right there in the thick of it at the end and we do what we do.”

To deepen the pitching pool, the Orioles announced tonight that they signed right-hander Adrian Houser to a minor league contract.

Houser, 31, appeared in 23 games (seven starts) with the Mets this season and posted a 5.84 ERA and 1.529 WHIP in 69 1/3 innings.  He was released on July 31, signed with the Cubs on Aug. 6 and had a 3.86 ERA and 1.071 WHIP in four starts with Triple-A Iowa.