CINCINNATI -- Blaze Alexander knew the stat before the reporter relaying it could finish the sentence. The 27-year-old utility man is active on social media, so he’s seen it on there.
With Sunday’s 3-2 loss to the Reds at Great American Ball Park, the Orioles’ season-high-tying three-game winning streak ended. It marked the seventh time this year that Baltimore had won three in a row, but the club just hasn’t been able to win …
“A fourth?” Alexander replied.
Correct.
So, why is that? How come every time the O’s (42-49) have had an opportunity to push a winning streak to four, they have failed to do so? Is there any kind of mental hurdle? What needs to happen for this team to go on a much longer run?
“It’s just got to win that fourth one, really,” Alexander said. “There’s no cloud in here over us, thinking like, ‘Hey, you can’t get that fourth one.’ I don’t even think anyone really looks at that, besides maybe me. But really just play consistent baseball, pitch well, play really good defense and good situational hitting. I think that’s kind of the recipe to that fourth win.”
Some of those ingredients were there Sunday in Cincinnati.
The Orioles certainly pitched well. Kyle Bradish was perfect through four innings and pitched into the eighth, allowing three runs in a strong 7 2/3-inning outing. The 29-year-old right-hander’s biggest mistakes came in the fifth, when he issued a leadoff walk to Eugenio Suárez and then gave up a two-run homer to Spencer Steer that gave the Reds a 2-1 lead.
“He pitched definitely well enough to win that game,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “He was on.”
The defense played a crisp game. Bradish induced 11 groundouts, with strong plays being made around the diamond by first baseman Pete Alonso, second baseman Jeremiah Jackson, shortstop Gunnar Henderson and Alexander at third.
“They’re good out there. They made some really good plays, especially early in the game,” Bradish said. “If I’m getting weak contact and ground balls, it means I’m in the zone and I’m throwing it to where I need to throw it.”
But Baltimore’s bats were quieted. The only run the O’s scored against left-hander Nick Lodolo came on Coby Mayo’s two-out RBI single in the sixth, an inning in which the bases were left loaded when Jackson struck out swinging.
Trailing 3-1, the Orioles put together a ninth-inning rally against right-hander Emilio Pagán. They cut the deficit to one on Henderson’s sac fly for the second out of the frame, but Adley Rutschman flied out to center field to end the game, leaving runners on first and second.
The O’s starting rotation has been solid of late, recording a 3.04 ERA over the past four games and providing good outings more often than not for several weeks. But Baltimore has scored four or fewer runs in seven of its past nine games.
“They’ve been huge for us,” Alexander said of the starters. “We’ve got to pick them up a little bit.”
As a whole, this weekend’s three-game series can be viewed as a good one for the Orioles. They won the first two, and they continue to play a better brand of baseball than they were early in the season, when their struggles were more frequent.
But with only six games to go before the All-Star break, it’s now guaranteed that Baltimore will enter the second half with a sub-.500 record -- and less time to climb out of this hole it’s in.
“We've shown what we're capable of. The biggest thing -- and we keep on talking about it -- is that consistency of it,” Albernaz said. “Now, it's being able to play a complete game of baseball for an extended period of time.”
After an off-day on Monday, the O’s will close out the first half with a six-game homestand featuring a pair of three-game series against the Cubs and Royals. It’s an opportunity for them to build some positive momentum and stay in the American League Wild Card race enough to convince the front office to buy at the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline.
Who knows, maybe this could also be the week in which Baltimore finally gets that elusive four-game winning streak. Perhaps it even does more than that.
“Maybe we sweep both,” Alexander said. “That’d be cool.”