Orioles End Slump With Clutch Hits To Beat Marlins, 9-7

Sam Basallo is the least experienced member of the Orioles roster, and daily lineup, but he exuded a maturity and poise in key situations at the plate that the team’s veteran former All Stars could learn from. And with the game 7-7 in the top of the ninth, one of them did.

The 21-year old, who has been far more good than bad in his rookie season, collected a double, a single and a triple in his first three at bats of what felt like a must-win game against the Marlins in Miami, and in what was as close to a home game as the native of the Dominican Republic will play. Basallo made a point of working counts against ace Sandy Alcantara and waiting for his pitch and not trying to kill everything and not chasing launch angle and just meeting the ball and – crazy as it sounds – shooting it the other way at times to drive in four runs.

And when the Orioles cratering bullpen gave up a three-run lead, which Basallo contributed to with an errant throw on a steal of third, rookie skipper Craig Albernaz had former All Star catcher Adley Rutschman (switch hitter) pinch hit for him in the ninth, facing a lefty. Rutschman employed a similar approach to punch a ball into shallow left for the go-ahead RBI, Leody Taveras continued his shocking start with another run-scoring hit and the Orioles won, 9-7.

“It was great energy from the guys the whole game,” Albernaz said. “They played loose and you could tell they were locked in on every pitch. It was exactly what we want from them, and what we want from them moving forward.”

Had the O’s blown this, on the heels of getting thoroughly shelled in the Bronx, on a night they finally hit in the clutch, it would have been a new low. Miami stole three bases in the eighth, with reliever Andrew Kittredge quite shaky again, and scored that bizarre run on a wild pitch, after a Marlins team that can’t hit for power blasted back-to-back homers off rapidly-fading reliever Anthony Nunez and they whacked around aging starter Chris Bassitt before that.

It all felt pretty ominous, but The Birds survived.

It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t matter. The O’s found a way to score one more run than another team for the first time since Thursday, and scored nine times without hitting a home run. That’s progress.

The Orioles had just four hits with runners in scoring position the entire lost series against the Yankees, but they scored three times in the first inning – a true anomaly for this bunch – and had five hits with runners in scoring position.

Bassitt Couldn’t Walk It Like He Talked It

The O’s won for the first time since Bassitt (5.91 ERA) regaled the media with the team’s “come to Jesus” pitching meeting prior to his last outing on Thursday. That afternoon Bassitt stymied the Astors, but he’s been getting pounded all season, even by weak-hitting teams like the Marlins, and he displayed ample cause for concern again Tuesday. (The O’s have allowed 57 runs in six games since Bassitt’s address, by the way).

Orioles baseball czar Mike Elias is exceptionally poor evaluating pitching – and older pitchers in particular – and Bassitt,37, might not make it through this season in Baltimore (even with all of the other injured starters), you know, how Kyle Gibson and Cole Irvin and Charlie Morton and Craig Kimbrel didn’t in the past.

Bassitt couldn’t make that immediate three-run lead stand for long, surrendering a run in the first (this staff doesn’t do shutdown innings) then he walked two batters and hit two in the same inning. His control remained elusive and he was prone to getting hit hard. Guile and guts and a great quote and being a team-first leader will only get you so far.

“He didn’t have feel for his breaking balls,” Albernaz said. “He was searching for that all game

Bassitt required 79 pitches to barely escape four innings, there was yet another truly bizarre wild pitch (11th by O’s starters, most in majors after Shane Baz did the same to allow a run to score Monday in New York), scoring another run. Bassitt gave up six hits, and four earned, and walked three, and looks, frankly, like a bullpen arm; he was for Toronto in the playoffs.

"I just never got it going " Bassitt said of his curveball after the game. "Just one of those days."

But this was the rare occasion where the Orioles hit the ball like a baseball team, and not a collection of home-run-chasing individuals. Basallo led the way, but Pete Alonso also used all fields to drive in runs, and the O’s took advantage of opportunities – for the most part – when the Marlins booted the ball around like Baltimore normally does.

BIRD SEED

Nunez isn’t fooling anyone the last few times out, missing fewer bats and getting hit hard. He’s allowed nine runs (seven earned) over 3 1/3 innings in his last two starts, on 10 hits. And Kittredge, a big offseason signing, continues to have difficulty throwing strikes with nearly enough regularity. Rico Garcia continues to be elite however, with a knack for getting out of tough spots with inherited runners on base, and he cleaned up Kittredge’s mess and shutdown the Marlins in the ninth for the win … Alonso busted his hump on the basepaths all night and scored four runs. Taylor Ward continues to take the best regular at bats on the team and he scored three times, too.

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