Note and quotes after a walk-off loss at Toronto

TORONTO – It was the night when Adley Rutschman hit his first career homer and Ryan Mountcastle hit two longballs. The Orioles rallied from five runs down to tie the game. It was set up to be a huge comeback win. But the Orioles instead absorbed a 7-6 walk-off loss at Toronto.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. continued to torment O’s pitching with a 116 mph single into left field in the 10th inning to end the game. It was his fourth hit of the night, his first career walk-off RBI and third career four-hit game.

Some notes and quotes on the third game of this series, which Toronto now leads 2-1.

He got to wear the chain: Starting to swing the bat better and with a 5-for-18 mark over his last five games with three doubles coming into the night, Rutschman went deep for the first time in the majors.

Blue Jays right-hander José Berríos gave up just one hit over the first six innings, and it was Rutschman’s drive to right-center in the fourth that went the distance. It was a two-run shot that cut the O’s deficit to 5-2. Rutschman would later double for his fourth multi-hit game of the year and his second game with two extra-base hits.

When Rutschman arrived back in the O's dugout after his 411-foot blast, Trey Mancini, who was on chain duty, sore right hand and all, gave the catcher the homer chain and added a big hug too.

“Just kind of came naturally,” Mancini said of his bear hug of the rookie. “When you are in a bit of a homer drought, and when the homer is your first major league homer, you kind of just want a hug sometimes after that.

I remember Manny (Machado) gave me a hug my first home run too, so was kind of like a full-circle moment. Nothing that I planned or anything. Felt like Adley deserved and needed a hug right there. It’s a great feeling.”

Mancini feels the homer will be a bit of weight off Rutschman’s shoulders, so to speak.

“You definitely take a load off when it’s your first home run, and you are able to breath a little bit more. Kind of going along and he’s doing such a good job, he’s such a pro. He’s handled himself so well. Really excited to see what he does from here on out. He’s got a great, long career ahead of him.”

Hays and Mountcastle come through again: Before Wednesday’s game, manager Brandon Hyde was asked about Austin Hays and Mountcastle coming up with a lot of clutch hits this year. Then the duo did it again in the eighth last night. Hays doubled in the run that made it 6-4, and Mountcastle’s two-run homer – his second homer in two innings – tied the game at 6-6.

“They swung the bat great,” said Hyde. “Berríos was throwing the ball really well and we made a great comeback there against their bullpen. Got some big hits late. Our bullpen did a great job, (Bryan) Baker 2 1/3 huge innings to keep the score right there. (Dillon) Tate with a really good eighth and Lopie (Jorge López) a great ninth, so. Just came up a run short.”

Mountcastle has now hit six homers in 13 games in June, seven in his last 15 games and 12 on the season. He has hit 41 homers in his past 148 games dating to last year. His 12^th homer gave him the team lead by one over Anthony Santander, who is on the restricted list for this series.

Mountcastle produced his fifth career multi-home-run game. Three of them have come against Toronto. In 28 career games versus the Blue Jays, he is batting .345 (38-for-110) with four doubles, 12 homers, 21 RBIs and a 1.109 OPS

Why not just walk him: As Guerrero came up in the 10^th, the placed runner, Bo Bichette, was on second base. The Orioles could have just walked Guerrero, since his run didn’t mean anything, and put runners on first and second with no outs for Alejandro Kirk.

“Yeah, there is (some thought to that),” said Hyde. “I mean (Félix) Bautista is not a groundball guy. Throws 101 mph. If the count goes a little deeper, possibly. He’s got some really good hitters behind him. Give Vlad the credit, he got on top of 100.”

Zimmermann’s night: In one sense, O’s lefty Bruce Zimmermann threw himself under the bus after the game last night, basically saying the team could have had the lead with its eighth-inning comeback if he had been a little better earlier in the game.

The night started out OK for him, and he was getting some swings and misses on his changeup. Was he finally ending his recent slide? As it turned out, no. He would allow 11 hits and six runs over 4 2/3 innings, giving up three homers, all hit 400-feet plus, with one going 443 and another, by Teoscar Hernández, going 461 feet.

Zimmermann now has a 9.79 ERA over his past six starts, allowing 15 homers in 30 1/3 innings. The stretch is testing his confidence.

“I mean, I think anyone could see that,” he said. “It’s a tough game and a tough league. You know this division doesn’t give you any breaks. There are no excuses or anything like that. You have to perform. I keep thinking about if I was just a little bit better in those spots, then you go into the eighth with the lead instead of those guys put on a helluva job of battling back.

“Early on I had my changeup pretty close to where I had it earlier in the year. I really liked how it was looking and feeling. There were a couple of at-bats 3-2 that we went to spin that probably I should have gone back to the changeup, since I knew I had it back to where it’s kind of been.”

Zimmermann felt good about some mechanical tweaks he had made, and the changeup was solid early on last night. A couple of times in his postgame interview he expressed disappointment he didn’t shake off a few signs and throw the changeup even more.

“Today I was feeling a lot more comfortable with a lot of my stuff. Probably should have gone back to the changeup, with it being my best pitch, and trusting it in those spots. Kind of a mental lapse in those big-pitch counts. … I think in those big counts that’s on me to really bear down and shake (off the catcher and go) to the pitch I want and ride or die with the changeup.”

The Orioles will need to win today in the series finale to split this four-game series and go 4-4 on the eight-game road trip when right-hander Tyler Wells (3-4, 3.86 ERA) faces former Oriole Kevin Gausman (5-5, 2.67 ERA) at 3:07 p.m. at Rogers Centre.