The Baltimore Orioles took the rubber match of their three-game set with the Toronto Blue Jays with a 4-2 win at Camden Yards on Thursday afternoon.
The two teams split the first two games of the series, with Baltimore knocking Chris Bassitt around in an 11-6 win on Tuesday and José Berríos leading the Blue Jays to a 3-0 victory with a dominant outing on Wednesday.
Dropping this series in Baltimore puts the Blue Jays at 7-17 against American League East opponents this season. The only teams in baseball who are doing worse within their division are the Colorado Rockies (4-15) and Oakland A’s (4-23). That isn’t the kind of company a contending team would like to keep.
Things worth mentioning…
- For the seventh time in a row, Yusei Kikuchi didn’t make it further than five innings in a start. He scattered a couple of earned runs on six hits and two walks over four-and-two-thirds innings while striking out seven batters. It wasn’t a bad outing, but Kikuchi again made John Schneider have to dig into his bullpen to clear through half of the game. The last time Kikuchi pitched six innings was all the way back on May 7 against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
- Yimi Garcia came into the game in the fifth inning after a runner reached on an error by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Garcia got the first two batters in the sixth inning but then allowed back-to-back singles before another Guerrero misplay allowed Baltimore to take a 3-2 lead. The Orioles added another run in the bottom of the eighth inning when Austin Hayes smashed a solo homer off of Erik Swanson.
- All of Toronto’s offence came from Danny Jansen in this game as he hit solo home runs in the third and fifth innings. The team went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.
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