Grayson Rodriguez walked off the mound for the final time Wednesday night with the same stoic poise he displayed throughout the game. He had just struck out the side in a perfect seventh inning, capping off one of the right-hander’s best outings of the season.
It came at a time the Orioles needed just that, a stopper to end a frustrating week.
Rodriguez allowed only two runs over seven frames, keeping a sluggish Baltimore offense within reach. Then Cedric Mullins, the first batter after Rodriguez silenced the Cleveland Guardians, hit a towering homer that found Eutaw Street to energize Camden Yards and give the Orioles their first lead of the night.
Baltimore was lost for answers during its five-game losing streak, the club’s longest since 2022. It was the Orioles’ familiar contributors who led a 4-2 victory that halted the skid.
Rodriguez provided much-needed stability for a shaky Orioles pitching staff of late. Baltimore’s starters entered Wednesday allowing 32 earned runs of their past 39 2/3 innings. That includes Rodriguez’s last outing, in which he gave up seven earned runs in five innings against the Houston Astros.
He worked around two solo home runs to silence a Cleveland lineup that terrorized Orioles pitching Tuesday. Guardians first baseman Jhonkensy Noel, in his first career plate appearance after joining the major league team Wednesday morning, recorded his team’s first hit off Rodriguez in the second inning with a 413-foot solo blast into the Baltimore bullpen. Gabriel Arias took the right-hander deep in the fifth to put the Guardians back in front.
Rodriguez settled in after that, pitching perfect sixth and seventh innings to give his offense a chance to leap ahead.
Mullins’ seventh MLB season didn’t begin how he hoped. He fell out of the Orioles’ everyday lineup with a disastrous start to his campaign, hitting .170 with a .522 OPS on June 8.
Since, the 2021 All-Star center fielder has looked more like his former self. He has two homers in his past six games, including his second career Eutaw Street blast that put the Orioles on top for good Wednesday. He entered the victory hitting .321 with a .357 on-base percentage over his past 16 games, second and third on the team, respectively, over that stretch.
Gunnar Henderson drove in the Orioles’ first two runs, extending his on-base streak to 33 games, but they struggled converting their early chances otherwise. Baltimore loaded the bases with one out in the first inning and couldn’t plate anyone. Anthony Santander flied out in foul territory and Jordan Westburg struck out looking, but they pushed Guardians starter Carlos Carrasco to throw 30 pitches.
Henderson evened the score with his second single in as many innings to plate Jorge Mateo, who doubled in his first plate appearance and went 2-for-3 on the night. Henderson knotted the score again with his 26th home run of the year — the second most in the majors — in the fifth inning. And after Mullins led off the seventh with the go-ahead shot, Ryan O’Hearn smacked his 10th homer of the season to give the Orioles a two-run cushion.
After Cionel Pérez pitched a clean eighth, Craig Kimbrel recorded his 17th save of the season and 434th of his career by striking out the side in the ninth.
The four runs were all Rodriguez needed to prevent his team from losing its sixth consecutive game. That total wouldn’t have been enough most nights over this stretch as the Orioles’ pitching staff scuffled, but this was the start they needed — and missed.
Around the horn
• Dean Kremer will make his third minor league rehabilitation start Thursday with Triple-A Norfolk, manager Brandon Hyde said before the game. The right-hander was uneven in his first two appearances with the Tides, going just 2/3 of an inning and allowing five runs in his second rehab start. That contributed to the decision to keep him down for at least one more start, in which Hyde hopes to see Kremer work deeper into the game.
• Hyde allowed players to arrive at the ballpark later than usual Wednesday, searching for a unique way to end his team’s losing streak. “I wanted guys to … be able to relax a little,” Hyde said. “We do that periodically to keep guys as fresh as possible.”
This story will be updated.
Rangers at Orioles
Thursday, 6:35 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
