KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For the second time this weekend, a defensive blunder cost the Orioles a chance at winning a low-scoring game.
On Friday, outfielder Heston Kjerstad couldn’t corral a catchable fly ball and shortstop Gunnar Henderson booted a grounder in a game that spiraled into an 8-2 loss. Sunday, it was a dropped fly ball by Jorge Mateo in center field that doomed Cade Povich and the Orioles in a 4-1 loss to the Royals.
“I thought I had it,” Mateo said. “The ball was hit a little harder than I thought it was at first.”
Mateo’s miscue came on just the second batted ball of the matinee, but it unlocked a chain of events that ended with Kansas City scoring three runs in the frame. Povich couldn’t escape the early quicksand after Bobby Witt Jr.’s fly ball to center field, to which Statcast gave a 99% catch probability, narrowly went over Mateo’s glove for what was ruled a triple.
The next batter, Vinnie Pasquantino, hit a sacrifice fly to score Witt, but that would’ve been the last out of the inning had Mateo caught the previous fly ball. The next three Royals batters smacked hits off Povich, including Michael Massey’s two-run double that put Kansas City up 3-0.
Povich battled throughout the rest of the afternoon, scattering a whopping 13 hits but walking zero to make it through six innings. The only other run he allowed came on a Freddy Fermin single in the second.
Povich is just the second Orioles starting pitcher to get through six innings after Zach Eflin did so in each of his first two starts of the season.
“I thought he threw the ball really well,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “I know he gave up some runs there early, some hard contact, but besides that, I thought he competed extremely well. … Being able to go six innings for us today, that’s huge for us.”
Baltimore’s offense continued its yo-yo to begin the season with poor performances after stellar ones. After scoring eight runs Saturday, the lineup produced only one run off Royals left-hander Kris Bubic and the bullpen. Ryan Mountcastle tallied three of the Orioles’ five hits and scored on a wild pitch in the seventh inning.
“We got to do a better job offensively from a consistency standpoint of taking good at-bats,” Hyde said.
Through 10 games this season, the Orioles are 4-6 and in last place in the American League East. The rotation has a combined 5.62 ERA for one of the worst marks in MLB, while the offense has scored two or fewer runs in five of 10 games.
“Up and down,” Hyde said when asked to describe the Orioles’ season so far. “I mean, it’s only 10 games. We’ve had definitely opportunities to win some of the games that we’ve lost, so that’s frustrating. Today’s frustrating. First game of the series here was frustrating. We can play a lot better baseball.
“We’re gonna be a better team going forward.”
Postgame analysis
Facing Bubic, who is worse against left-handed batters, Hyde elected to stack his lineup with right-handed hitters.
He gave Cedric Mullins a day off — his first this season — and benched lefties Heston Kjerstad and Jackson Holliday one day after each had an RBI hit off a reverse-splits lefty. Hyde put Jorge Mateo, an infielder who has played little outfield in his career, in center field in Mullins’ stead.
Those decisions backfired.
The Orioles tallied only five hits and one run off Bubic as the crafty lefty kept Baltimore’s righties off-balance. And Mateo, who started only four games in the outfield between 2022 and 2024, didn’t corral Witt’s catchable fly ball in the first after getting a bad jump that Statcast tracked as minus-20.6 feet.
“He probably misjudged it with the wind a little bit, kind of a tough play,” Hyde said. “It’s something that Jorgie works on every single day. … With the Cowser injury, we’ve been having him out there a lot, and drills he looks good. But kind of a tough day today.”
Entering Sunday, right-handed hitters posted a .755 OPS off Bubic, while lefties have fared significantly better with a .900 OPS. However, it’s worth noting that splits work in both directions, meaning a hitter’s splits also factor into the equation. Bubic struck out eight, and the only run he allowed scored because of a poor defensive play by one of his outfielders.
“We acquired and signed right-handed guys to face left-handed starters and we’re gonna give them an opportunity, especially early in the year here, to hopefully handle left-handed pitching for us,” Hyde said.
However, Hyde’s decision to rest Mullins, who is off to a scorching-hot start, amid an eight-game stretch without a day off, against a lefty, and with three righties due up in Arizona, should be without controversy.
Mullins’ 2023 campaign was derailed by two lower-body injuries, and the beginning of this season included playing four straight days on turf in Toronto and the first two games in Kansas City in frigid temperatures, including a soaking-wet surface Friday. Even when Mullins was an everyday player for the Orioles in 2021 and 2022, he still received between 10 and 20 days off per season.
“This is just one of 162 for him,” Hyde said. “He’s had leg stuff in the past, and we’re managing it. He’s been playing his absolute butt off, unbelievable baseball.”
Instead, it’s putting Mateo in center field, rather than starting Kjerstad in left and moving Ramón Laureano to center, that might have cost the Orioles this game.
What they’re saying
Cade Povich on his gritty start:
“I think after the second inning, four runs, obviously more hits than you want in two innings, it was kind of one of those where a lot of balls put in play. A team like that, they do that. You saw that the last two days. It was kind of one of those days everything put in play seemed to find a hole. I think it’s kind of one of those situations, you look at it and say, ‘You can either kind of either give in and die here or figure out something to get through.’ We’ve used our bullpen, I know going in that going deeper in the game would be beneficial for some of the guys in the bullpen. Really just thought about what can we change and let’s do what we can to get through six at least.”
By the numbers
In Saturday’s 8-1 win, the bottom four hitters in Baltimore’s lineup combined to go 6-for-16 with six RBIs. Sunday, the Nos. 6-9 hitters — Laureano, Gary Sánchez, Ramón Urías and Mateo — combined to go 0-for-10 with five strikeouts.
Only twice did the Orioles get a runner in scoring position, and they went hitless in those situations.
On deck
The Orioles will travel to Arizona in hopes of winning their first series of the season.
After splitting the first series against Toronto, Baltimore dropped both series this week against the Red Sox and Royals. Zach Eflin, Charlie Morton and Dean Kremer are due up on the mound, and they’ll avoid facing former ace Corbin Burnes, who isn’t scheduled to start one of the three games for the Diamondbacks.
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Orioles at Diamondbacks
Monday, 9:40 p.m.
TV: MASN2
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM