Santander puts slump on hold with homer, Teheran impresses again in second outing (O's win 6-4)

SARASOTA, Fla. – Anthony Santander swung the bat, dropped it and began jogging to first base. His eyes stayed locked on the baseball.

He wanted to watch it disappear over the right field fence.

The wait was over. He earned the chance to enjoy his work before picking up the pace.

Santander hit a two-run homer tonight off Pirates ace Mitch Keller in the bottom of the first inning. He began the game 2-for-17 with no extra-base hits, RBIs or walks.

Gunnar Henderson led off by reaching on an infield single, Adley Rutschman flied out and Santander gave the Orioles an early 2-0 lead.

“Really good,” Santander said later. “But I’m more happy about my timing and the timing stuff I’ve been working on the last couple days.”

Santander batted with the bases loaded and no outs in the third, made loud contact again, but grounded into a 4-6-3 double play that scored Jorge Mateo. This time, there wouldn’t be much of a reward, but it brought a little more encouragement.

“Putting the ball on the barrel twice in a row, that’s great,” he said. “That means the work that I’ve been doing the last couple days, it’s good work.

“My hands were a little bit higher. The last couple days been seeing a lot of video to make some comparisons to last season. Make an adjustment as quick as possible.”

Mateo and Henderson had singled and Rutschman walked against Keller, who allowed three runs and four hits in three innings to leave his spring ERA at 7.71.

In his next trip to the plate in the fifth, Santander grounded into another double play and Heston Kjerstad replaced him in right field. The slump hasn’t completely let go of him, but the grip sure did loosen in the first.

Henderson went 3-for-3 with a double in the fifth inning before leaving for a pinch-runner. Rutschman singled to score Ramón Urías with the tying run.

Rutschman was 1-for-13, his only hit a home run in his first spring at-bat.

* Julio Teheran isn’t hurting his chances of going north with the team.

Teheran retired six of seven batters in his second appearance and his first start, throwing 17 of 24 pitches for strikes. The only blemish was a two-out walk to Jack Suwinski in the first inning.

The Pirates had four fly balls, a bouncer to the mound and a slower roller to third that Urías charged and made a strong throw to record the out.

Teheran retired the side in order in his only inning Saturday against the Yankees.

“I feel good throwing strikes,” he said. “Obviously, I walked one batter today but I feel like it was close in the zone, it wasn’t that far away, so I feel good with the way I’ve been throwing strikes.”

Arriving late in camp hasn’t put Teheran too far behind the other pitchers. He was facing batters over the winter in Miami and didn’t need much time to make his Orioles debut.

“Throwing two innings is kind of the same as what the guys have been doing,” he said. “Hopefully by the next outing, I will feel that I’m getting close to the normal season form.”

A new group of pitching coaches and instructors haven’t had much time to leave an imprint on Teheran, who signed a minor league deal on Feb. 28. But two appearances give both team and pitcher an idea of what they can work on to increase his chances of making the Opening Day roster.

“My breaking balls, I feel like there’s still a little bit of room to make them a little bit better,” he said.

The stats can’t get much better in a modest sample size. And he needs numbers to crack the rotation or bullpen.

“Every pitch, every at-bat that I throw, it’s going to count, and that's what I'm taking out there,” he said. “I'm taking it one pitch at a time and obviously showing them that I came here to make the team."

* Baltimore native Bruce Zimmermann followed Teheran tonight and struck out four batters in two scoreless innings. He returned for the fifth, allowed three straight singles with one out and walked Joshua Palacios to force in a run.

Bryan Reynolds struck out, and Ryan Watson entered the game. A run scored on a balk, Henderson’s fielding error let the tying run score, and Jake Lamb singled for a 4-3 lead.

Zimmermann was charged with two earned runs (four total) and four hits with one walk and five strikeouts in 2 2/3 innings.

Dillon Tate retired the side in order in the sixth with a strikeout, ground ball and fly ball. He hasn’t allowed a run or hit or walked a batter in his three appearances, and he’s fanned three batters.

Mike Baumann went strikeout, strikeout, tapper in front of the plate in the seventh inning.

* Adam Jones and Matt Wieters, former Orioles All-Stars in camp this week as guest instructors, did something today for the first time. Never as teammates.

They tossed a baseball back and forth.

“I was always playing catch with the outfielders, he was playing catch with the pitchers,” Jones said. “I got to play a good round of catch with him.

“It’s good to see him back. He’s a fixture in this organization like I was. … I think he can only be an asset for this organization, and for him being down here, it’s cool. Me and him in the coaching room. My locker was in the corner and his was the first, so it’s like Cedric (Mullins) and Adley (Rutschman) are there right now. It just comes full circle and it’s nostalgia for both of us, because we know this city very well. It’s not like we’re just going to a random city. We know Sarasota really well.

“It’s just really cool and humbling for both of us to be a part of it. And for them to ask us to be a part of it. We didn’t go in there and beg them for it. They reached out to us and asked us if we wanted to be a part of something special, and it’s really cool.”

Here’s more from their media scrums earlier today:

Jones on young talent here:
“These guys are hungry, they’re good, they’re talented, they’re athletic. What (Mike) Elias and his regime have done is implement a different philosophy, a winning philosophy, a winning culture from the bottom to the top as opposed to the top to the bottom. You’re seeing the success that they’re having, and it started some years ago with the draft, the player development. The sky’s the limit for them. They’re going to have a lot of tough decisions to make for the roster because there’s a lot of guys knocking on the door, and rightfully so. It’s good to see a really good-run organization right now and what they’re doing is really cool.”

Jones on advice he gave outfielder Ryan McKenna about staying in the majors:
“Be a Swiss Army knife. Do what you can do, do whatever you can do to impress somebody. You don’t get many chances.”

Jones on Colton Cowser:
“I really like Cowser. I think last year, his first bite of the apple in the big leagues, and struggled a little bit. But we’ve all seen that. But seeing him now in spring training, just a different mindset. To me, I think he’s going to have a monster year no matter where he’s at. He’s a tremendous talent and now he has the confidence to understand where he’s at and realize, ‘You’re a major leaguer, be a major leaguer, play like a major leaguer.’ And to me, every swing I’ve seen has been with intent. It’s fun to see.”

Jones on what it means to the city of Baltimore when the Orioles are winning:
“It’s great. Obviously, Baltimore is a baseball city first, so when Baltimore baseball is winning … Football, you know the Ravens are going to be very competitive, they always are. When the Orioles are good, the city, there’s no better place. Camden gets rocking, especially in the summertime. The city thrives the businesses thrive, it’s a full whirlwind. And it’s cool to see all the businesses thrive, and especially after the COVID stuff and a lot of businesses had to recoup. And now having your sports franchises, the governor (Wes Moore) is trying to generate more businesses to Baltimore. I think the next 10 years are going to be really interesting to see the growth of Baltimore City. And it’s really going to be cool to see the plans of both stadiums and stuff like that. The next decade in Baltimore should be a really fun one.”

Jones on manager Brandon Hyde:
“I’ve known Brandon Hyde for 10-12 years and he’s always been the same. He’s a professional, and he took on the job to run the ship and he’s done a hell of a job. I could see Hyde being here for the next 10 years easily just because he fits the city, he’s a hard-nosed guy. You know Baltimore. Baltimore doesn’t care about all the glitz and glamour. It cares about getting the job done and he’s doing a hell of a job. I tip my cap to him, going through the rebuild, and now he’s getting to see the success of the hard work.”

Wieters on Rutschman:
“Mature. All the young group of guys, there’s such a group of guys here who are (concentrating) on getting better. They have this kind of focus when they get here to do their work, and he’s no different. He has fun when he wants to have fun, but there’s a drive behind it, which is fun to watch.”

Wieters on changes and similarities since he left the Orioles:
“Obviously a few different training methods than when we were playing. But there’s just this feel of the young dynamic that when we first moved into this building we kind of had. It’s different faces, different names, different backgrounds, but it still has that same kind of, we’re a bunch of younger kids who want to prove something.”

Wieters on Hyde:
“A real player-friendly manager. He keeps it light and I think he can do that because of the type of players that he has. The players, being around them, they want to get better and they want to improve.”

Wieters on how his development as a fifth-overall draft pick would be different today:
“I think I would have had to check my ego a lot quicker with the amount of machines and full-on BP. You’ve got to come in ready to compete and not be embarrassed. There’s no feel-good BP, trying to hit the ball 500 feet. It’s every kind of rep they get is in essence trying to be a game-speed rep. When we were coming up, the game was the game and you were just getting prepared for it. You’ve got to have the game within the game kind of going into it now.”

* Tyler Nevin led off the eighth with a single and Daniel Johnson reached on an error. Coby Mayo doubled to left field with one out to break a 4-4 tie, and the Orioles won 6-4.

Left-hander Nick Vespi retired the side in order in the eighth and Jonathan Heasley recorded the save with a spotless ninth.

The Orioles head into the off-day with an 11-2 record.

Hyde liked what he saw from Teheran.

"A guy that can pitch, move the ball around the strike zone, change speeds," Hyde said. "Back in the Atlanta days early, he was a hard-throwing right-hander. Now he's a guy who's got to be able to command everything on the corners and change speeds, and he's done that the last couple times out."

Baumann is improving his chances of being in the bullpen on Opening Day.

"Really impressed with Baumann. Excited about Mike," Hyde said.

"The unpredictable off-speed stuff in fastball counts is going to be a separator for him. So far this camp he's thrown some really good changeups, he's throwing good curveballs, along with a mid-to-upper 90s fastball. Love the confidence he's showing so far and how aggressive he is in the strike zone."

Mayo worked the count full, laying off close pitches, before pulling the ball down the line.

"The last few days I worked hard, felt a little bit off," he said. "Had a three-game stretch where I was just kind of not feeling as great as I was, and tried to get back in the cage. Not overthink it. Just do what I did last year. Getting back to the same routines and the same loading and swing path where it was last year. Cool it was a night game. I feel like I see the ball really well at night, so I was happy to be back under the lights and get a hit when I can."