Mateo leaves injured as O's trail early in Miami (updated after O's lose 6-3)

MIAMI – The first game of the Orioles' road series against the Miami Marlins could have started better. A whole lot better. 

As the last of the third inning ended tonight, the Orioles found themselves down three runs and two injured players.

The Marlins, who entered with a National League-worst 35-65 record, scored four runs in the second to lead the Orioles 4-1. After the Birds pulled within 4-3 in their half of the third, Miami scored twice more in the home half to make it 6-3.

In that inning, both second baseman Jorge Mateo and starting pitcher Albert Suárez left with apparent injuries. It was definitely an injury for Mateo, who left with head athletic trainer Brian Ebel and assistant Pat Wesley. Suárez left with Wesley, but he may have been about to be pulled from the game anyway.

After a leadoff single in the home third, Jesús Sánchez, who homered an inning earlier, hit a grounder up the middle. Both shortstop Gunnar Henderson and Mateo at second went for the grounder on the first base side of the bag at second. They came together and hit each other with Mateo left’s arm and elbow becoming badly twisted as he went sprawling into Henderson. He came up holding his left arm, and after Ebel looked it for several minutes, they walked off the field along with Wesley.

The team provided a brief update on Mateo in the sixth inning but only to say he exited due to left elbow pain. 

Ramón Urías entered the game and went to third base with Jordan Westburg moving from third to second.

In the very next at-bat, Otto Lopez lined one at 102 mph that went off the lower right leg of Suárez. After a mound visit from manager Brandon Hyde and Wesley, Suárez left the game. Whether that was performance related, injury related or some combination of both, we’ll find out more after the game.

That hit loaded the bases, lefty Keegan Akin came on and two more runs scored as Miami led 6-3.

The night just has not gone well at all to this point for the Orioles, who are 13-28 all-time versus the Marlins and 3-14 all-time in Miami. 

Also tonight, Colton Cowser was cut down at third base trying to advance from first to end an inning, Jazz Chisholm Jr. stole third in the second inning with Suárez holding the ball and not even making a pitch or a play on him at third. Adley Rutschman has a throwing error. The O's had first and third with no outs in the second and didn't score.

They did get a 1-0 lead in the first on Westburg's RBI single to left, hit at 109.4 mph. And they scored twice in the third on Ryan O'Hearn's RBI single and Cowser's infield RBI hit.

Suárez went two-plus innings and allowed eight hits and six runs on 60 pitches. This was his shortest start of the year and he allowed a season high in runs.

Through the fourth inning, the O's had outhit the Marlins 9-8 but were down 6-3. 

But they headed into the middle innings down by three runs as they try to win this series opener at loadDepot park.

O's fall in series opener: The Orioles got eight hits tonight over the first three innings, but nothing much going after that as they lost tonight 6-3 in Miami.

They fall to 60-40 as they reached the 100-game mark.

They are 30-18 on the road, 2-2 on this trip, 20-13 in series-opening games and now 13-29 all-time versus the Marlins.

Neither team scored after the early runs through the third inning. The O's got some solid relief pitching as Burch Smith and Vinny Nittoli combined for 3 2/3 scoreless innings on two hits to keep the team in the game. But the offense did not help them out.

Nittoli has now thrown four scoreless with the Orioles over two games and Smith has pitched 4 1/3 scoreless over four games.

Miami's Tanner Scott, the former Oriole who made the All-Star team this year in the National League, got the final three outs to record his 17th save in 19 chances.

Since June 17, he has thrown 15 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings and is 9-for-9 in save chances.

McDermott to start on Wednesday: Hyde announced after the game that right-hander Chayce McDermott will make his major league debut and start on Wednesday night versus the Marlins.

A fourth-round pick by Houston in 2021, he was traded to the Orioles on Aug. 1, 2022 as part of the three-team trade that included Trey Mancini going to the Astros. McDermott is now the Orioles' No. 6 prospect via Baseball America and No. 7 on MLBPipeline.com. This year at Triple-A, he has gone 3-5 with a 3.96 ERA, a 5.34 walks-per-nine-innings rate and 12.76 strikeouts-per-nine-innings rate.

Hyde postgame updating Mateo and Suárez: “Mateo has a left elbow injury. X-rays were negative, he’s going for further tests right now, he’s getting an MRI on that. As of right now, he’s day-to-day, but we don’t know the extent of how hurt he is. Suárez, a shin contusion and he should be fine."

Did Hyde take out Suarez because the liner hit him?: “I was trying to stay in the game with somebody else at that point. And Akin did a good job, he got three outs there. But we didn’t score after that, not much offense.”

Hyde on if Mateo has to miss time: “Jorgie brings a lot to the table for us, so, we’re hoping for the best."

Hyde as team has now lost seven of 10 and is 11-15 the last 26 games: “We just did not play well. And we haven’t been playing our best baseball for a while. We made a lot of mistakes early in the game. Ran ourselves out of innings twice. Just not ... we need to play better."

Suárez on his shin: “It hurts more now than when I got hit. The adrenaline is down right now and it hurts. But the X-ray came out negative. So it is swollen and painful, but nothing else.”

Mullins on a bad night: “We had a couple of rallies going that got killed. I got thrown out at second base. Cowser had the out at third. Had some momentum that kind of got shut down and they took advantage of it.”