Orioles rally past Jays for 6-4 homemade win (updated)

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a ball tonight that should have sent the cover in one direction and yarn in another. It also should have landed in Anthony Santander's glove, except he broke in and tried unsuccessfully to make a leaping catch.

Guerrero had a run-scoring double with two outs in the first inning, another early lead for the visitors, and the Orioles probably had a "here we go again" moment as their homestand reached its third game.

At least Santander didn't get hit squarely in the face, as Derek Fisher did in the bottom half of the inning while chasing Trey Mancini's shallow fly ball in right. Fisher stayed on one knee for a while and came off the field with a huge welt under his right eye.

Would the Orioles be hurting again tonight while trying to improve on a 15-38 record at Camden Yards?

Freddy Galvis homered off Dylan Bundy in the third and the offense looked as though it would stay in its sluggish state until Jonathan Villar led off the fifth with a home run and Mancini added a three-run shot later in the inning.

The Orioles responded to Reese McGuire's game-tying, two-run homer off Richard Bleier in the seventh, his first of the season, by scoring twice in the bottom half and holding on to defeat the Blue Jays 6-4 before an announced "Walk With Elias" crowd of 12,951.

The Orioles would have settled for a walk at one point. Anything to get runners on base.

Villar provided their first hit off left-hander Thomas Pannone with his home run, and Mancini followed singles by Stevie Wilkerson and Hanser Alberto with his team-leading 26th homer for a 4-2 lead.

Bleier came in to face the left-handed hitting McGuire, inheriting a runner from Shawn Armstrong, and one swing tied the game. The Jays nearly took the lead later in the inning on Galvis' double, but Bo Bichette was ruled out at the plate after the Orioles challenged the call.

Alberto broke the tie by dumping an RBI single into right field after Chris Davis walked and Wilkerson doubled. Wilkerson scored on Mancini's bouncer to short and the Orioles improved to 37-73 and made certain that the Jays wouldn't spend Sunday trying for their first four-game sweep in Baltimore since June 1997.

Both runs were charged to Buddy Boshers, who faced only two batters and couldn't record an out. Justin Shafer replaced him and retired pinch-hitter Jace Peterson - leaving Chance Sisco as the only reserve - before Alberto and Mancini collected RBIs.

Alberto and Wilkerson each had two hits, recovering nicely from the foul balls that slammed into their shin and knee, respectively, and kept them out of last night's lineup.

Mychal Givens struck out three of the five batters he faced, and Villar made sure that Guerrero was stranded in the eighth with a diving stop and throw to deny Brandon Drury. Paul Fry worked the ninth for his third save as Branden Kline warmed.

Bundy threw 97 pitches in 5 1/3 innings and allowed two runs and five hits with one walk and seven strikeouts. Armstrong stranded an inherited runner and one of his own.

Pannone began the night with a 5.98 ERA and 1.430 WHIP in 49 2/3 innings. He set his career high in strikeouts with seven after only 3 2/3 innings and finished with nine through the sixth.

The first start of Pannone's major league career came against the Orioles on Aug. 22, 2018, and he blanked them on one hit in seven innings. His next start, at Camden Yards, lasted only 3 1/3 innings, and he surrendered seven runs and nine hits.

The Orioles saw the good version tonight through four innings.

There's no momentum in baseball beyond the next day's starting pitcher, but the Orioles were building a nice little roll with their winning West Coast trip and 12-12 record last month.

Two games into the current homestand and the Orioles were 0-2 with four runs scored.

"What's disappointing to me is I feel like we've played so much better on the road. I don't know why," Hyde said this afternoon.

"I feel like we take better at-bats on the road. I feel like we're, I don't know. We're just more competitive on the road in a lot of ways and we just haven't played well at home for whatever reason."

The Orioles didn't take batting practice today, leaving the cage for the Blue Jays. Hyde is open to pretty much anything that might spark his club.

"You mix things up on occasion," he said. "Like today we have a lighter day. On certain hot days we might do less, or we have one big work day and then a light day the next day. Certain things to just try to mix things up. Maybe we don't hit one day. But I don't think that's always the answer.

"You do want to keep things fresh. You do want to change things up when things aren't going well. I feel like we've done that. But when it comes to 7:05, it's still 7:05 first pitch."

Day or night, the home games haven't provided an advantage.

"I don't know what the reasoning is," Hyde said.

Bichette led off tonight's game with a double and scored on Guerrero's liner over Santander's head. Bundy struck out three batters in the third but also hung a curveball to Galvis.

Bundy retired 10 of 11 batters, the home run ruining a streak. Drury, who replaced Fisher, drew a leadoff walk in the fifth and Teoscar Hernández singled, but the Orioles turned a 4-6-3 double play on McGuire's ground ball and Bichette flied to left.

The Orioles scored four runs in the bottom half of the inning, but their pitching staff surrendered at least two home runs for the eighth game in a row.

A rally in the seventh eased the pain. Only Fisher came away bruised.

Update: Jimmy Yacabonis will be the opener Sunday and Tom Eshelman will follow him. Eshelman was listed as the starter.

Hyde on team battling back: "It all started out with CD's walk and Wilkerson with a big hit in the gap. And then Alberto, like he's done all year, gets a big hit for us. So yeah, that was great to see.

"Once again, started the game off ... I thought Pannone threw the ball really well against us. But again, I thought we came out and didn't take very good at-bats the first four innings. And it was disappointing. But Villar with the homer and Trey with the homer, which is what we needed. So that kind of gave us a boost and some energy in the dugout. But we just can't wait around that long. It's not major league."

Hyde on Alberto's go-ahead hit: "There's nothing sexier than a base hit the other way with a runner in scoring position for me. Love it. Seriously, I mean, it's a beautiful thing. One thing you know is, Alberto is going to swing and he's going to cover the plate. So he's going to always give himself a chance. He never pulls off, uses the big part of the field. Always has a middle-of-the-field, right-center approach.

"Guys that hit with runners in scoring position, that's what they do. Use the whole field. I think a lot of our guys could learn from that."

Hyde on still having Mancini: I don't think there's any secret how much Trey means to us. He's our middle-of-the-order bat that is a run producer. Even the 3-2, when I had the runner in motion, putting the ball in play, huge. To be able to put the ball in play on a tough slider 3-2 with a runner in motion. It was a big run for us.

"I think Trey has got some of the best opposite-field power in the league. l love when he drives the ball that way."

Hyde on 'pen management being a challenge: "No Miguel Castro again tonight once again, and somehow we got the last nine outs. But Mychal Givens was huge, stepped up and got four huge outs, three of them by strikeout. Once again I pitched him against the middle part of the order. Then Paul Fry did a good job, getting the double-play ball at the end of the game. Somehow pieced it together, but got it down."

Bundy on start: "Stuff-wise, I was really happy with it. All my pitches were moving the way I wanted them to. I hung a couple sliders there and threw ... not a bad curveball, but he hit it well."

Bundy on relievers: "Everybody in here's been working hard and every one of us is trying to get better each and every day. So it's nice to see the benefits of that."

Bundy on Mancini: "How much has he meant? He means the whole team, I think. He shows up and plays every single day, and seems like every single day he has a hit, also. Sometimes it's a homer. Most of the time. Or an extra-base hit. It means a lot to this team and I'm happy he's still here."

Mancini on offense perking up: "After a good road trip we kind of fell a little flat the first couple of games, and the first four innings today. We came out kind of flat, and luckily Villar's home run kind of sparked us right there and we got some momentum that inning and put up four runs.

"For them to tie it and us immediately answer was huge and big for our offense. We had been struggling a little bit, so that was good for everybody's confidence, and everybody contributed tonight, which is great."

Mancini on his nine homers since the All-Star break: "There have been some periods of time I thought the home runs almost masked how I felt at the plate, which wasn't great, like the Angels series for example, I think. But overall I feel good at the plate, and sometimes the hits will come and sometimes they won't. But overall I'm pretty happy with everything."

Mancini on being happy he wasn't traded: "Extremely happy, yeah. I'm very happy I'm still here. I've been saying it all along, I'm so thankful to be here in this city and play in front of these fans and be on this team."

Alberto on crucial at-bat "I want to put the ball in play. Now I realize that when I put the ball in play, something happens. Obviously, with two strikes I don't want to take a big swing. I want to put the ball in play, so I did and I let Mancini do the rest."

Alberto on his approach, going the other way and hitting singles: "I think I just follow the pitch. Wherever he throws the pitch, that's where I'm going to hit the ball. You don't want to make a really big swing, you want to put the ball in play and try to let the guy behind you do the rest. That's what we're doing in the second half, and we're really, really good."

Alberto on team coming back: "We battled the whole year. There are a lot of games we have to come from behind. We never put our head down. We never give up. We go out there and fight and compete and try to help the pitchers do their job. That was a good fight tonight and we get the W."