Baltimore Orioles right-hander Grayson Rodriguez, one of the best prospects in baseball, turned in the best start of his big-league career in his second matchup with the Detroit Tigers.
This time, Rodriguez tossed five scoreless innings on two hits and one walk with nine strikeouts. The Tigers scored four runs in the sixth inning but lost, 6-4, in Game 2 of Saturday’s doubleheader at Comerica Park.
“It’s been a characteristic of our team,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “We’ll keep playing. We’re going to play the 27 outs, and these guys are credited with that. We just didn’t have an answer for Rodriguez, really in two starts now.”
The Tigers (10-16) beat the Orioles, 7-4, in Game 1 of the doubleheader. Last week, Rodriguez threw five scoreless innings on five hits and three walks with six strikeouts against the Tigers.
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Left-hander Matthew Boyd, a nine-year MLB veteran, wasn’t as sharp as the Orioles’ youngster. The 32-year-old allowed six runs on eight hits and one walk with three strikeouts across 5⅔ innings, throwing 66 of 102 pitches for strikes.
He crossed the century mark with two outs in the sixth inning, facing Ryan McKenna with a runner on first base while right-handed reliever José Cisnero warmed up in the bullpen. Gunnar Henderson drew a five-pitch walk, then McKenna drilled a fifth-pitch fastball for a two-run home run.
“I just missed down over the heart of the plate,” Boyd said. “My fastball plays up. There’s where I wanted to be with it. That’s completely on me.”
The homer put the Orioles ahead, 6-0, and chased Boyd from his fifth start of the season.
“Cisnero was up (and ready to pitch), but they’re going to counter,” Hinch said. “They have three left-handed hitters — (Cedric) Mullins, (Ryan) O’Hearn and (Adam) Frazier — on the bench. The choices are Boyd against McKenna or Cisnero against the lefty to start his outing. That has not been a great recipe, either.”
The Tigers showed life in the bottom of the sixth inning, responding with four runs off two relievers from the Orioles’ bullpen: left-hander Keegan Akin (a Western Michigan alumnus) and right-hander Mike Baumann.
A walk from Zack Short and a single from Riley Greene put runners on the corners for Javier Báez. The Tigers scored their first run as a fielding error allowed Báez to reach safely.
That’s when the Orioles replaced Akin with Baumann.
Tyler Nevin, pinch-hitting for Nick Maton, drilled a three-run homer off Baumann’s fifth-pitch slider, cutting the Tigers’ deficit to 6-4. The ball traveled 421 feet to straightaway center field, which was brought in from 422 feet over the offseason.
“I’m up there to compete every time,” said Nevin, whom the Tigers optioned to Triple-A Toledo after Game 2 of the doubleheader. “He was going to get my best, and I came through that time.”
Gray-Rod’s day
The Orioles’ bullpen made the game interesting, but before Akin took the mound in the sixth inning, Game 2 of the doubleheader belonged to Rodriguez. He is ranked as the No. 5 prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline.
Rodriguez is the second-best pitching prospect, behind only Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Andrew Painter. The Orioles selected him No. 11 overall in the 2018 draft out of high school.
“I know he didn’t make their team out of the gate, but he’s part of their present and their future,” Hinch said. “Good arm, good stuff, good demeanor, under control, moment is not too big. That’s what you like about good young pitching if you have them. Facing him, it’s hard to rattle him because he continues to come at you with his best stuff.”
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Facing the Tigers, Rodriguez flashed 41 four-seam fastballs, 23 changeups, 12 curveballs, 10 cutters and five sliders. He generated 13 swings and misses, including eight with his changeup, and recorded 18 called strikes.
Rodriguez threw seven of his 12 curveballs for strikes: two whiffs, four called strikes and one foul.
The 23-year-old struck out the side in the third inning: Matt Vierling (changeup, swinging strike), Andy Ibáñez (fastball, swinging strike) and Zach McKinstry (changeup, swinging strike).
Rodriguez added two strikeouts in the fourth inning, taking down Greene (changeup, called strike) and Maton (curveball, swinging strike). He also had three strikeouts in the fifth inning against Eric Haase (curveball, called strike), Akil Baddoo (changeup, called strike) and Ibáñez (changeup, swinging strike).
“His secondary pitches were good, and we chased,” Hinch said. “Pretty decent in first-pitch strikes. He went through our lineup. We worked him enough, but we didn’t quite pressure him enough to create any chaos for him.”
Before Ibánez’s second strikeout, back-to-back hitters reached safely with two outs on Miguel Cabrera’s single and Vierling’s walk. But Rodriguez escaped the jam with his ninth strikeout to complete his fifth start.
Ibánez, called up from Triple-A Toledo before Saturday’s doubleheader, finished 0-for-3 with three strikeouts in his first start.
Death by papercuts
The two-run homer from McKenna put the Tigers in a six-run hole in the sixth inning, but the Orioles put them behind 4-0 with a four-run second inning on five singles and a wild pitch.
One of those five hits had a 100 mph exit velocity.
“We made adjustments after that second inning,” Boyd said. “We’re not running away from the contact. We’re coming right back with it. And it was going really good there. Obviously, the home run sucks. That’s the difference in the game.”
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Three Orioles tagged Boyd with RBI singles: McKenna, Joey Ortiz and Austin Hays. The fourth run scored on a wild pitch. Boyd then retired the 13 of the next 14 batters before Henderson’s two-out walk in the sixth inning.
The second inning started with back-to-back singles from Jorge Mateo and James McCann.
After McKenna’s two-strike home run, Cisnero completed the sixth inning and returned for a scoreless seventh inning. Righties Jason Foley and Will Vest kept the Orioles from scoring in the eighth and ninth, respectively.
“We had a pretty good plan,” Hinch said of McKenna’s homer. “(Pitching coach Chris Fetter) went out before the at-bat, and we had a pretty good plan. We didn’t execute, and he made us pay. Certainly, looking back, that’s the big at-bat.”
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.