Trey Mancini carried the Orioles back into their comfort zone tonight, his two-out, two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning moving them past regulation. Moving them to where they had won eight of nine games.
Mancini felt right at home in the 11th, his three-run shot off Pirates left-hander Wade LeBlanc with two outs giving the Orioles a 9-6 win before what remained of an announced crowd of 19,957 at Camden Yards.
Caleb Joseph worked a two-out walk to move Joey Rickard to second base after a single. Mancini followed with his first career walk-off home run, on the first pitch, which also marked his third multi-homer game.
The Orioles completed the sweep and are 31-26 overall and 9-1 in extra innings as they head to D.C. for Thursday night's makeup game against the Nationals. But they don't know whether third baseman Manny Machado will be available.
Machado underwent X-rays on his left hand that came back negative after he was spiked by Andrew McCutchen in the second inning. The Orioles were working to schedule an MRI.
Machado's wrist is fine, but the back of his hand has a gash that apparently can't be stitched.
"They're talking about getting an MRI tomorrow just to be on the safe side, make sure we know what we're dealing with, so we'll see if and when that can get set up," said manager Buck Showalter. "But I'm hoping it's something that ... He got pretty sore. Went down in the cage and didn't feel good swinging the bat, so decided to be cautious.
"It's a puncture here, pretty deep. It's more on the top here, pretty deeply bruised, just kind of deep. It's an unfortunate slide, I can tell you that. We've had our share. I don't think Andrew was doing it maliciously. It certainly was an unfortunate execution of a slide. You hate to see it. I'm sure McCutchen felt the same way. But sometimes things happen in the heat of battle, just like Manny's slide (into Dustin Pedroia).
"I don't think there's any maliciousness on either part. We were certainly not going to start retaliating."
The Orioles may need to make multiple roster moves, or at least be prepared for them.
"I don't know yet," Showalter said. "I know we'll probably do some precautionary things in case we find something out tomorrow. Fortunately, we're not traveling tonight. There will be some decisions we'll probably have to make tomorrow. We'll have to do some things as far as pitching. That's another.
"There are two issues here. The infield, especially with a National League game. It would have been a great day to have a day off tomorrow like it was scheduled before we got a game called off."
Adam Jones homered into the Orioles' bullpen off reliever Johnny Barbato in the eighth inning to reduce the lead to 6-2.
Mark Trumbo led off the ninth inning with his third walk of the night and Jonathan Schoop followed with his 18th double of the season. Left-hander Tony Watson entered the game and Rickard lifted a sacrifice fly to center field. J.J. Hardy doubled and the lead was down to 6-4.
Joseph struck out, but Mancini drove a changeup - the eighth pitch of the at-bat - over the right field fence to tie the game. Mancini was batting for Seth Smith.
Watson surrendered Schoop's game-tying two-run homer last night in the ninth inning.
Brad Brach retired the side in order in the 10th and Mychal Givens tossed a scoreless 11th to earn the win and improve to 6-0 this season and 16-2 in his career with the Orioles.
According to STATS, Mancini is the first Oriole to hit a pinch-hit homer in the ninth inning or later and hit another homer in the same game. He joins Mike Young (May 28, 1987) as the only Orioles to hit a game-tying homer in the ninth or later and hit a walkoff home run in the same game.
Wade Miley is known as a fast worker, a guy who keeps his defense on its toes and wins admirers in press boxes across the country. But an elevated pitch count in the early innings can slow a game to a crawl. It also can hustle a pitcher back inside the clubhouse.
Miley lasted only 2 2/3 innings tonight, letting 10 of the 18 batters he faced reach base,
Pain comes in various forms.
Miley allowed four runs and eight hits, with two walks and four strikeouts. He threw 83 pitches, 46 for strikes, and never found his rhythm.
The four earned runs are one more than he surrendered in his previous five starts at home.
Miley threw 23 pitches in the first inning while allowing two hits and striking out a batter. He threw 34 in the second while the Pirates were taking a 2-0 lead on Max Moroff's two-run double following singles by McCutchen and Elias DÃaz.
Diaz had a two-out, two-run double in the third after a leadoff walk and José Osuna's single. Miley retired the next two batters but couldn't put away Diaz. He walked Moroff and was gone.
McCutchen forced Machado out of the game on his slide into third base on a double steal. His spikes dug into Machado's wrist, which was bent backward.
Machado sat on the ground in obvious pain as assistant athletic trainer Brian Ebel raced onto the field. He stayed in the game and bounced a throw to first base in the third inning after fielding McCutchen's ground ball and stepping on the bag. No error was ruled on the play.
In his only at-bat, Machado grounded into a 5-4-3 double play to end the first inning and lower his average to .213 with 12 home runs and 27 RBIs.
Rubén Tejada replaced Machado and went 0-for-4 with three ground balls and a strikeout.
Edwin Jackson also made his Orioles debut in the seventh inning, after Mike Wright retired 10 of 11 batters and stranded two runners. Osuna hit a two-run homer with one out, crushing a slider, after Gregory Polanco singled and David Freese flied to deep center field.
Jackson allowed two hits and walked a batter in the seventh, and his fastball topped out at 94 mph. He retired the side in order in the eighth, walking a batter and striking out one, and gave up two hits in the ninth before Richard Bleier recorded the final out.
Jackson allowed two runs and four hits in 2 2/3 innings, with two walks, one strikeout and a home run. He threw 44 pitches, 27 for strikes.
The Orioles were held to one run over five innings by Pirates starter and Delaware native Chad Kuhl, who was 1-5 with a 6.02 ERA before tonight. They scored in the second without getting a hit.
Chris Davis and Trumbo walked, Davis raced to third on Schoop's fly ball to center field and he scored on Hyun Soo Kim's sacrifice fly to center.
The Orioles never faced Kuhl before tonight, but they scouted him extensively while he pitched at the University of Delaware. The Pirates got him in the ninth round in 2013.
"It's somebody that we're certainly aware of," Showalter said before the game. "Plus-arm, good stuff. His last couple outings he's added a curveball a little bit, which wasn't something he was featuring before. But he's a three-pitch mix.
"Another guy that's over 60 percent fastballs, which is very unusual in the American League. I can tell you that."
The Orioles are headed to another National League ballpark on what was originally scheduled as an off-day. They could have used one to give Machado's hand more time to heal.
Here's more from Showalter:
"There will be a lot of things forgotten because of Trey's contributions, but that was big. Big. I'll think back about the outing by Mike Wright that kind of stemmed the tide some. I think there were 90 pitches in two innings by the two pitchers. I was looking up there. It was like 13 pitchers tonight, but I knew once we got Mike (Givens) in there we had a shot. What's he now, 6-0? 7-0? We were kind of down to our last bullets there.
"Trey obvious had a couple of big blows. I thought Caleb had a big at-bat to get him up there."
On Miley: "Wade, just kept waiting for him to find his step and just didn't feel like he was ever going to be able to make the adjustment. It's one of the things when a guy that works that quickly and rapidly, when you get out of sync a little bit, it's tough to slow down. He's a guy you don't realize how many pitches he has until you look up there because he works so fast."
On Mancini: "They spend a lot of time up the runway when these guys are coming in and talking about a guy you've got to slow down on. One of the things I like about him and the challenge he's going to have as he goes on in his career is to stay out there and not try to hook everything. The last ball he hit is just a product of a good approach and a good hit. The other one is a product of having a good approach.
"The challenge is going to be, as he gets older, and they're being compensated for 30 home runs and the ability to take what they're giving you and drive the ball the other way for a single, is he doesn't get caught up in the lure of what the industry rewards to make himself hit for that high average for a long period of time."
More on Mancini's home runs: "I don't think either one he's trying to do too much. The home runs are just a product of a good approach and a good swing. He's not trying to. He'll probably tell you that some of the semi-lull and the quick start he got off to is he might have gotten a little big. But you're not going to sneak up on anybody. These guys are throwing the kitchen sink at him and he's got to realize that his worst enemy is going to be himself, and make sure that they're getting you out and you're not getting yourself out. And he's doing a good job with those adjustments."
By accepting you will be accessing a service provided by a third-party external to https://www.masnsports.com/