ARLINGTON -- Kyle Bradish notched his 500th strikeout in his 90th career game Saturday night, reaching the milestone in fewer games than anyone in Orioles’ history. He said after that fifth-inning, 94.5 mph fastball for a called strike on Jake Burger that he didn’t realize it was No. 500 until somebody on the Baltimore side asked for the ball.
“Hopefully there’s many more to go,” said the 29-year-old righty, who got to 500 strikeouts seven games quicker than Erik Bedard, previously the fastest to reach the mark for Baltimore.
And though Bradish said he’ll put that keepsake ball alongside other memorabilia at his house, he would probably rather forget what happened earlier in the Orioles’ 5-1 loss to the Rangers. Their chances to avoid a three-game losing streak were just out of reach Saturday night at Globe Life Field.
Bradish was in command for most of his five innings, allowing no earned runs, no walks and no extra-base hits. Only three of his 17 batted balls were hit harder than 100 mph, according to Statcast. But he and the Orioles never recovered from some early miscues.
“The margin for error in this league is pretty much zero,” Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said. “You can't give another big league team, never mind the Texas Rangers, extra outs, an extra 90 feet. It’ll come back and bite you.”
The Orioles didn’t do much at the plate, other than Jackson Holliday, who had a first-inning homer and a double in a 2-for-3 night. Baltimore had six hits and went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position.
“It doesn't matter what our offense is doing, just in general, you just can't allow the extra outs, the extra 90 feet,” Albernaz said. “You're putting more stress and more strain on the guy on the mound in KB, and then the cascading effect through that.”
In the fateful second, Bradish made a throwing error on a pickoff attempt, allowing the Rangers’ Ezequiel Duran to go from first to third.
“I thought we had him, I got a little excited, and I just basically threw a slider over to Pete [Alonso] ... not my best,” Bradish said.
Then another errant throw from Bradish -- a wild pitch to Burger that bounced in front of the plate -- set up the unluckiest moment of the night for Baltimore.
Burger chopped a slow grounder to Bradish’s right -- the ball left the bat at just 76.7 mph, with a mere .220 hit probability -- and that’s when it became obvious that things were just out of the Orioles’ grasp Saturday.
Bradish tried to barehand the Burger ball, but came up short in his attempt to pick it up. So did shortstop Gunnar Henderson, who also missed a barehanded stab. But after the shortstop secured the ball on his second effort, his throw home was a little wide and a tad low. Although the throw wasn’t quite on target, it was definitely on time. But it popped out of Carlos Narváez’s glove before he could apply a tag on Evan Carter.
“It came off the line a little bit ... it could’ve been a little bit better throw,” said Henderson, who was 0-for-4 in the leadoff spot. “Baseball sucks sometimes, man.”
For Holliday at least, Saturday represented a step forward. Before his first-inning solo homer off Jacob deGrom, Holliday was 0-for-18 in August after a torrid July in which he slashed .368/.500/.421.
“It’s the ebbs and flows of the season, but Jackson, we have all the confidence in the world in him,” Albernaz said. “His at-bats, going on for two months now, have been outstanding.”