When brutal stretch arrived, O's hit a roadblock

By Steve Melewski

Orioles

August 17, 2019, 7:08pm

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The way it has been going for the Orioles' pitching lately, you would certainly take a night when they gave up just four runs. That happened last night, but they still lost.

They were held to five hits in a 4-0 loss at Boston to fall to 39-84 with six losses in a row and 11 in the past 12 games. They've scored one run in two games this weekend at Fenway Park.

Today the Orioles end a brutal stretch of 13 straight games against the Yankees, Astros, Yankees and Red Sox. At best they will go 2-11. They went 0-3 at home against New York where they allowed 16 homers and 32 runs. They lost the last game of that series 14-2 and the night included the dugout argument between manager Brandon Hyde and Chris Davis. With those games, the Orioles completed an 0-10 home season against New York and in the 10 games they allowed 43 homers and 95 runs.

The Orioles played a solid game on the first night of a three-game series versus Houston at Oriole Park but lost 3-2. The next night they lost 23-2. They gave up six more homers that night, three to rookie Yordan Alvarez. It was the most runs the club allowed since Aug. 22, 2007, when the O's allowed 30 to Texas. It was the fourth-most runs the Orioles have ever allowed. They gave up 25 hits for the third time in franchise history.

The next day the Orioles produced their only win in this stretch. They beat Houston 8-7 on a Rio Ruiz two-run, walk-off homer in the last of the ninth.

Then it was back to face New York starting this past Monday, where they got swept four in a row. They finished the season going 2-17 versus the Yankees with 16 straight losses. For the year against the Yankees, the Orioles have allowed 61 homers and 151 runs.

On to Boston.

The series promptly began Friday night with the Orioles getting whipped 9-1 and they had just five hits. Boston improved to 28-8 in the last 36 games against Baltimore. They added a win to that total last night.

It might be hard to remember, but when this stretch of games began the Orioles were playing well. On Aug. 1-2, they lost to Toronto at home but came back to win the next two games to split a four-game series with the Blue Jays.

At that point, they had a winning record for over a month, going 16-15 since June 30. In that span they were 4-3-3 in 10 series, winning series against Cleveland, Boston, Toronto and the Los Angeles Angels. They went 7-5 the last 12 games and 10-7 over the past 17.

But then they hit this tough stretch and yikes - they've gone from 38-73 to 39-84.

But there sure was a highlight last night. Right-hander Hunter Harvey, the club's 2013 first-round pick, made his major league debut with a scoreless eighth inning. Harvey fanned two batters, got a groundout against J.D. Martinez to start his inning and walked one. He threw 21 pitches and touched 99 and 100 on the radar gun.

He picked up where he left off on the farm. His last five outings for Triple-A Norfolk were scoreless and he fanned nine over six innings. He had given up just one run over his last nine innings with 15 strikeouts.

It was an uplifting note during another loss in a brutal stretch for the Orioles.