Matt Harvey was rolling again and now O's can sweep the Nats

By Steve Melewski

Orioles

July 24, 2021, 7:10pm

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Nice crowd, nice starting pitching, a few timely homers and a nice top of the ninth with no drama.

That was all quite ... nice.

The Orioles have won the first two games of their series with the Washington Nationals and go for a sweep behind John Means this afternoon. They are 5-3 with two series wins in three tries since the All-Star break.

Maybe the few days away during the break was good for both right-hander Matt Harvey and several of his teammates.

Pitching on 10 days' rest last Sunday at Kansas City, Harvey threw six scoreless innings against the Royals. And then last night he did it again. His ERA has dropped from 7.70 to 6.65 in two games.

In those two games he has allowed four hits in 12 scoreless innings with one walk and six strikeouts. Kansas City and Washington went a combined 4-for-40 against him.

He threw 18 of 23 first-pitch strikes in Kansas City and 11 of 19 last night.

The O's rotation has just 18 quality starts this year but now they have three in the last six games, two by Harvey.

As an aside, has he enhanced what little trade value he had at the All-Star break? Would a team look at these last two outings and wonder if there is more to come? And could he help them at the back of their rotation for the next couple of months?

The trade deadline is Friday.

"Obviously, everybody knows when it is and it's there," Harvey said, "but really, my job is to go out and prepare for each start and see what happens. Obviously, I haven't put up very good numbers other than the previous two and to really be a target or whatnot, but at the end of the day those decisions aren't mine and I can't really worry about them. My job is to go out and win ballgames for the Orioles, and luckily I've been able to do that the last two and I'm going to continue to do that from here on out."

Meanwhile O's starters have now thrown five innings or more in five of the last six games, missing being six of six by one out. In the 15 games before this stretch, they had just one outing of five innings or more. For the moment, the days of getting 3 2/3 or 4 1/3 are at least momentarily gone.

Just three O's starters this year have thrown scoreless starts - Means, Harvey and Keegan Akin.

Means has four of them, including one on opening day and one during his no-hitter. Harvey has now done that back-to-back and Akin threw five scoreless innings on June 4 versus Cleveland.

The crowd of 30,898 on Jim Palmer bobblehead night had a fun Saturday evening in downtown Baltimore.

And they made a difference for the team.

"The guys in the dugout were talking about it," manager Brandon Hyde said. "We had a night two or three weeks ago that was kind of similar to this. It's a noticeable difference. The energy - players are feeding off it. We should have Jim Palmer bobblehead night more often, because it was just a great energy in the ballpark and players loved it. It does help, there's no doubt about it. It does help, and kudos to our fans for coming out and supporting us tonight."

Baysox walk it off: While the Orioles got a pleasing win at Camden Yards, a few miles to the south the Double-A Bowie Baysox scored three in the last of the ninth to post a 6-5 walk-off win over Hartford. Bowie is now 41-28 and has won four in a row and eight of 10 games.

Adley Rutschman hit a game-tying two-run homer to produce a 5-5 tie on his 15th of the year. Later Zach Watson's single won it for the Baysox. Kyle Stowers went 0-for-5 as his hitting streak was snapped at 14 in a row.

Much earlier, right-hander Grayson Rodriguez had his poorest outing of the year and earliest exit. He gave up a first-inning solo homer and second-inning three-run double as Bowie fell behind 4-0. Over 1 2/3 innings, Rodriguez allowed three hits and four runs as his ERA increased from 2.04 to 2.83. He had allowed two earned runs or fewer in 12 of his first 13 starts.

Meanwhile, lefty Drew Rom threw well again Saturday night for the high Single-A Aberdeen IronBirds in an 8-5 win over Hudson Valley. Rom allowed three hits and one run with two walks and six strikeouts over five innings, throwing 90 pitches. He improved to 8-0 with a 2.79 ERA.

Low Single-A Delmarva beat Lynchburg 7-3 to improve to 41-29. Batting first and second, Mason Janvrin and Lamar Sparks went 5-for-9 with a double, triple, five runs and an RBI.

Triple-A Norfolk lost 5-2 to Gwinnett as right-hander Dean Kremer allowed three runs and seven hits over 4 2/3 innings. For the Tides he is now 0-4 with an ERA of 6.98.