O's bats stymied by familiar face in former teammate Kremer

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Orioles faced a pitcher for the first time on Monday night at Target Field. It was not, however, an unfamiliar face.

Ten days after Dean Kremer was traded to the Twins, the 30-year-old right-hander took the mound for a revenge game against the O’s. It was only the second of his 135 appearances to not come in a Baltimore uniform during his seven-year MLB career.

Who would have the advantage? Kremer, who has watched many of the hitters in the Orioles’ lineup for years? Or those hitters, plenty of whom have played behind Kremer in the past?

“He probably knows our lineup pretty well, and we know him as a pitcher pretty well,” center fielder Colton Cowser said before the game. “So it’ll probably be one of those games where we have a little bit of a chess match going.”

Instead, Kremer cruised to checkmate.

The O’s mustered little offense against Kremer, who tossed seven innings of one-run ball while helping to send Baltimore to a 9-5 defeat in the opener of a three-game series. The former Oriole allowed only one hit and one walk while striking out seven in an 89-pitch, 60-strike gem.

The only run Kremer allowed came in the fourth. Gunnar Henderson led off the inning with a walk, moved to second on Pete Alonso’s groundout and advanced to third on Jackson Holliday's infield single, a tapper hit just in front of home plate. Tyler O’Neill struck out and Holliday was caught stealing to end the frame, but Henderson scored before Holliday was tagged out.

“We’ve seen Dean do that before,” Holliday said. “It sucks that he did it to us.”

Kremer retired 20 of the 22 Baltimore batters he faced, including each of the final 10. It was the first time in his MLB career he gave up fewer than two hits in an outing of seven-plus innings.

There were also some new wrinkles to Kremer’s approach that the O’s tried to prepare for.

“It looked like his glove side was higher than it usually was here, and then it looked like his release point was higher as well and threw a lot more four-seam [fastballs], which we knew coming in,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “That's what he did his last outing against Kansas City. But he still had the cutter going, the split was still there, and then he flashed a curveball when [he] needed to. So, that was a really good outing by Dean.”

It was a bit of a surprise when the Orioles dealt Kremer on July 31, the start of what turned into a Trade Deadline sale by the club. Three days later, catcher Adley Rutschman (Red Sox), outfielder Taylor Ward (Mariners) and right-hander Tyler Wells (Rays) were on the move as well.

Kremer admitted he wasn’t expecting it, while also noting the opportunity to face his former team -- one filled with plenty of his closest friends -- provided extra motivation on Monday.

“I won’t lie, there was definitely a little bit extra, just because they know me, so I’ve got to be even better,” Kremer said. “But I kept reminding myself, ‘Hey, execute every pitch, one pitch at a time, and go from there.’”

The Orioles have had a mostly quiet offensive start to August. They scored only 11 total runs over their first seven games of the month, going 2-5 over that stretch. But the bats came alive before leaving Arlington on Sunday, as Baltimore beat Texas, 10-5, to avoid a three-game sweep.

Baltimore plated a pair of runs in both the eighth and ninth against Minnesota’s bullpen, but the game was out of reach at that point, as the Twins took a 7-1 lead with a five-run seventh.

At 57-62, the O’s remain in the thick of the American League Wild Card picture, as the race is still wide open with a handful of teams jockeying for position. They were hoping this three-city, 10-game road trip would be an opportunity for them to go on a run, but they’ve opened the swing with three losses in four games after dropping two of three to the Rangers.

If the Orioles plan on making a late push, they need their offense to be more consistent and more potent. But the battle with Kremer proved to be one they couldn’t win.

“We just couldn't get anything going,” Albernaz said. “We either hit it in the air to the big part of the field, or that was it, honestly. Dean did a really good job of getting weak contact by us, and we didn't have the answer for it.”