On a blistering Sunday afternoon, the Baltimore Orioles’ bats were just as hot and snapped a seven-game losing streak with an 8-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels.
Mark Trumbo powered the offense, hitting two of the team’s four home runs. Manny Machado and Trey Mancini also homered for the Orioles, who won for just the second time in 19 games at Camden Yards.
Kevin Gausman continued to build on his last four outings where he had allowed 8 earned runs in 24.1 IP (2.96 ERA) to drop his season ERA to 4.20. He was stellar against the Angels, allowing two runs and six hits with two strikeouts and no walks over eight innings. Gausman threw 73 of 104 pitches for strikes in a dominating performance.
The Orioles knocked around former first round pick Deck McGuire, who was making his first start of the season in his seventh game (third with Angels), and just the third big league start of his career. McGuire allowed five runs and five hits with four strikeouts and two walks over just 3 1/3 innings.
McGuire found some success in the Cincinnati Red’s minor league system in 2017, going 9-9 with a 2.79 ERA in 28 appearances (27 starts). That success led the McGuire’s Major League debut, after which he put up solid numbers for the Reds, albeit a small sample size, going 1-1 with a 2.63 ERA in six games (two starts) covering 13.2 IP.
McGuire was granted free agency in the offseason and spent time in the organizations of both Texas and Toronto before catching on with the Angels in June.
The Angels started quickly against Gausman when Kole Calhoun led off the game with a double down the right field line. After Mike Trout popped to short, Calhoun advanced to third on a fly ball to centerfield off the bat of Justin Upton before scoring on a two-out single by Albert Pujols.
Gausman then settled down, throwing just seven pitches to get through the second inning.
The Orioles’ offense was quiet until the fourth inning. Adam Jones led the inning off with an infield single after Kinsler lost a pop-up in the sun. Machado then hit a 398-foot missile into the stands to give the Orioles a 2-1 lead.
Trumbo followed Machado to the plate and promptly homered to right, barely clearing the out-of-town scoreboard in the process after the ball caromed off the railing on top of the wall. McGuire, visibly shaken after allowing back-to-back home runs, fell behind Chris Davis 3-0 before Davis got the green light on a 94 MPH fastball and doubled off the wall in right.
After a wild pitch moved Davis over the third, Chance Sisco walked and Mike Scioscia came out of the dugout to make a pitching change in favor of Hansel Robles, who then allowed an RBI double to Steve Wilkerson and an two-run single to Tim Beckham. Adam Jones, the inning’s tenth batter, struck out to end the frame, but not before six runs had crossed to leave the Orioles with a 6-1 lead.
Gausman’s efficiency continued in the fifth inning as the righty needed just nine pitches to retire the Angels offense in order. Machado led off the bottom half of the inning with a ground ball into the five-hole that shortstop Simmons made a fine backhanded play and throw on to retire Machado by half a step.
Then the fireworks started back up.
Trumbo got ahead in the count 3-1 and then dropped an absolute bomb to left-centerfield for his second home run of the game, this one traveling an estimated 444 feet. Davis followed with a deep fly out to left which Upton caught up against the fence before Mancini hit his 11th home run of the season into left-center that provided an 8-1 margin.
Gausman allowed a two-out home run to Calhoun in the top of the 8th inning before striking out Mike Trout to end the inning.
Miguel Castro closed out the ninth and the Orioles salvages what otherwise would have been a winless home stand. The team starts a brief two-game series in Philadelphia on Monday before heading to Minnesota for a four-game series.
The Birds return home on July 9 to begin an eight-game home stand with a doubleheader against the Yankees that will take them into the All-Star break.
Game Notes
— INF Corbin Joseph cleared waivers and was outrighted to Double-A Bowie prior to the game.
— Machado’s and Trumbo’s back-to-back home runs in the fourth inning marked the fifth such occurrence on the season for the Orioles, and the first since Trumbo and Danny Valencia did it on June 17.
— When Trumbo homered in the fifth inning, it marked his 13 th career multi-homer game, and his first this season.
— The Oriole scored six runs in the fourth inning after scoring five runs in their previous three games. As MASN’s Steve Melewski noted on Twitter, the Orioles had scored six runs in a game just five times the previous 32 games.
–After going winless against the American League in June and 0-for-the-season against the AL West, the Orioles picked up a win in both categories on July 1.
— Paid Attendance: 18,351
— Time of Game: 2:29
