Cards erase 7-run deficit, but comeback falls short

ST. LOUIS – Cardinals closer Riley O'Brien spent the first half of the season pitching at an All-Star level. He has spent the last week searching for that form.

O’Brien’s struggles continued Wednesday night as he took the loss as the Cardinals dropped their season-high fifth straight game, 8-7, to the Orioles.

O’Brien entered with the game tied, 7-7, in the ninth inning. After allowing a leadoff single off a check swing from Samuel Basallo and an RBI double to Christian Encarnacion-Strand, what had the makings of a riveting Cardinals comeback fell flat.

“He's had a couple tough outings,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “Previous to that, he had a hell of a lot of good ones. So, this is part of being a closer. It's part of learning to be a closer. You learn how to do hard things by doing hard things. Right now, this isn't easy for him. And guess what? You put your head down and you plow through it. So, he will be fine.”

It is the third straight appearance in which O’Brien has struggled. He allowed a hit and two walks in one-third of an inning in a 10-9 Cardinals win at Cincinnati last Thursday, and was tagged for six runs in two-thirds of an inning in a 6-4 loss at Philadelphia three days later.

Marmol said he doesn’t see any connection between the outings.

“Sometimes you just got to chalk some of this to just bad ball luck,” Marmol said. “But they did take two really good swings off of Riley. One was caught by Churchy. The other one found the gap. But that inning starts with a check swing.”

The Cardinals erased a seven-run deficit with a six-run fifth.

Alec Burleson got the rally started by extending his hitting streak to 12 games, the longest active streak in the National League, with a two-run single to cut the Orioles’ lead to 7-3.

Jordan Walker followed with an RBI double and Nathan Church drove in two more with another double. Church stole third and scored on a well-placed José Fermín groundout to tie it.

“That's when you try to observe the team the most, whenever there's a game like today, where you give up five in the first and you're down 7-0 pretty quickly, you're looking for a couple things,” Marmol said. “How does the offense responds to that? Can you stay on point on different areas of the game, defense being one of them, because that's when you tend to lose focus a little bit. The attention to detail slips, you're not as on point and looking for ways to take advantage of some baserunning things. So, you sit back and you watch closely to make sure that the identity of the group remains steady, and they did that.”

The Orioles battered Michael McGreevy early and often. McGreevy allowed seven runs, 10 hits and two homers – all matching career highs allowed.

All seven runs came within the first 11 batters McGreevy faced, and most of the damage came via the long ball as Leody Taveras capped a five-run first inning with a three-run homer, and Pete Alonso hit a two-run home run in the second to give Baltimore a 7-0 lead.

“That was a rough start, and the sinker is his best pitch. That's what he leans on, it's what gives him success, but that pitch was not there for him,” Marmol said.

But McGreevy, though he never had a clean inning, was able to pitch scoreless frames in the third, fourth and fifth while striking out three and walking two.

The length allowed the offense to ignite and it offered a reprieve to a bullpen hemorrhaging under the weight of an increased workload due to injuries, innings limits and underwhelming starts.

“I didn't have the sinker today until that last inning,” McGreevy said. “The shape wasn't good … but outside of that, I didn't think I threw the ball all that poorly, in terms of what the box score says. I'm really happy to at least get to five and help the bullpen out a little bit.”

Nolan Gorman blasted a solo homer 413 feet into the right-field bleachers to get the Cardinals on the board in the second. It was the first homer since June 2 for Gorman, who was recalled from Triple-A Memphis on Tuesday.

Bryan Torres had a career-high three hits.