Scherzer shuts down O's, loss drops Orioles to 44-44 at break

This was not the way the Orioles wanted to head into the All-Star break. They could not overcome Nationals ace right-hander Max Scherzer today and lost 3-2 to hit the break with a record of 44-44.

Last year the Orioles were 10 games over .500 at the break and led the American League East by four games. Today they fall back to .500 and will be at least three games out by the end of the day.

The Orioles have lost five of six and 10 of 13 games. This was their first series loss to the Nationals since June 17-19, 2011. They are at .500 for the first time since they were 31-31 on June 14.

Down 3-1 with two outs in the ninth, Adam Jones hit his second solo homer of the game off Scherzer to pull the Orioles within a run. It was his 14th homer of the year, his seventh career multi-homer game and first since Sept. 20, 2014.

Scherzer held the Orioles to four hits over 8 2/3 innings as improves to 10-7 with an ERA of 2.11 through 18 starts. He came within an out of his fourth complete game of 2015.

After Scherzer struck out the first two Orioles in the first, Jones gave Baltimore a 1-0 lead with his 13th home run. He hit a 1-2 curveball to left for his second homer of the series and third in six games.

For Jones, that was career homer No. 179 as an Oriole, which tied him with Hall of Famer Frank Robinson for eighth on the Orioles all-time list. He moved ahead of Robinson with the homer in the ninth.

The lead held until the top of the fourth. After Wei-Yin Chen got the first nine outs on 37 pitches, Washington scored three runs to take the lead. Dan Uggla's two-out single with two on tied the score at 1-1. Then Tyler Moore doubled to right-center with two outs for a 3-1 lead.

Chen pitched a strong game, going eight innings for the fourth time this year to match his career high. He gave up eight hits and three runs (two earned) to fall to 4-5 with an ERA of 2.78. Chen has allowed two or fewer earned runs for seven straight starts, pitching to an ERA of 2.23 in that stretch.

The Orioles had just one at-bat in the game with a runner in scoring position and Scherzer retired Jones on a pop-up with two on to end the sixth. They went 0-for-16 with RISP in the series and are just 1-for-36 the last six games.

Four Orioles - Jones, Manny Machado, Darren O'Day and Zach Britton - now head to the All-Star Game. The Orioles begin the second half on the road at Detroit on Friday night.