Reynolds homers twice, but O's fall 5-4 at Atlanta

Mark Reynolds hit two homers tonight in Atlanta and Nick Markakis added another for the Orioles. But, thanks in part to a play that was not made in Atlanta's fourth inning, the Orioles lost 5-4 to the Braves tonight. With two outs and none on in the Atlanta fourth, Chipper Jones doubled and Freddie Freeman walked. Then Dan Uggla hit a liner to left. Luke Scott got his glove on the ball, but could not make the catch as a run scored and the O's failed to nail down the inning's third out on the play, which was scored as a single. Jake Arrieta then issued a walk to the next hitter to load the bases and David Ross followed with a grand slam to left to give Atlanta a 5-2 lead.

Reynolds now has 17 homers after hitting a two-run shot in the fourth and a solo blast in the sixth. It was his second two-homer game of the season. He hit two on June 11 against Tampa. Reynolds has hit five homers over his last 12 games and 10 in his past 25 games. He is batting .338 (23-for-68) over his last 22 games. A night after his 19-game hitting streak was snapped, Markakis went 3-for-5 with his seventh homer. He is batting .406 over his last 21 games and .285 on the season. But he flied out with runners on second and third and two outs in the eighth. Arrieta gave up five runs over five innings in his first start since June 20 to take the loss. He falls to 9-5 with an ERA of 4.74. Arrieta is 2-3 with an ERA of 8.04 in six career interleague starts. The Orioles fall to 10 games under .500 at 35-45. They have lost five in a row, eight of 10 games and are 5-14 over the last 19 games. They have lost 14 of their last 18 on the road. In Sunday's series finale at 1:35 p.m. Zach Britton (6-6, 3.38) pitches against Brandon Beachy (3-1, 3.04). In more positive news, right-hander Oliver Drake did not give up a run again tonight as the Single-A Frederick Keys won 3-0 at Kinston. Monday, Drake pitched a complete-game, three-hit shutout and tonight he worked 8 1/3 scoreless innings. Over those two starts, Drake allowed no runs and six hits over 17 1/3 and he is now 7-3 on the year with an ERA of 2.24. Sean Gleason picked up his 22nd save and that is just two off Frederick's single-season saves record.