Facing a Chicago Cubs lineup of nine right-handed hitters, Orioles left-hander Cole Irvin’s secondary pitches were going to be “important,” manager Brandon Hyde emphasized before the game. One of them let Irvin down repeatedly.
In Friday’s series-opening 10-3 loss at Wrigley Field, Irvin allowed three solo home runs in the third inning, all on his changeup, before Chicago broke the game open against three Baltimore relievers with a six-run sixth.
Making his second start back with the Orioles (43-26) after a stretch in Triple-A Norfolk’s rotation, Irvin threw two scoreless innings before having trouble locating his changeup in third. Miguel Amaya homered on one in the middle of the strike zone to open the inning, and after Irvin retired the next two batters, Dansby Swanson did the same. Christopher Morel then swatted one in the bottom part of the zone out to left field.
Irvin’s three home runs allowed in the third matched the total he surrendered with his changeup in 181 innings last year with the Oakland Athletics. The Orioles acquired Irvin, along with minor league pitcher Kyle Virbitsky, in a trade with Oakland this offseason for infield prospect Darell Hernaiz, hoping to add a dependable and controllable arm with strong command to their rotation. After Friday’s four-inning out, Irvin has allowed 19 earned runs in 22 innings as a starter for Baltimore.
When Irvin kept the ball in the yard, he was largely effective Friday, though Hyde appeared hesitant to allow him to work through the Cubs’ lineup a third time. After Nick Madrigal, Chicago’s No. 9 hitter, opened the fifth inning with a single on Irvin’s 68th pitch, Hyde went to his bullpen. In two starts back with Baltimore, Irvin hasn’t thrown more than 72 pitches; opposing hitters went 7-for-10 against him once he went beyond 75 pitches in his first three starts.
Baltimore scraped across one run in each of the fourth and fifth innings on a single by Austin Hays and a double by Jorge Mateo, respectively, but stranded the tying run at third base in both the fifth and sixth.
Mike Baumann opened the bottom half of the latter frame with a pair of walks. Cionel Pérez then balked both into scoring position and allowed a two-run single to Ian Happ. After another walk and a sacrifice bunt, Reed Garrett inherited two runners from Pérez and allowed both and two of his own runs to score. Pérez, one of Hyde’s most trustworthy relievers in 2022, has a 5.55 ERA and 2.05 WHIP.
Longtime Oriole Trey Mancini doubled off Garrett to open the seventh and eventually scored Chicago’s 10th run. Hays’ second RBI single in the eighth followed Ryan O’Hearn’s third hit of the afternoon.
This story will be updated.
Orioles at Cubs
Saturday, 2:20 p.m.
TV: MASN2
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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