BALTIMORE -- Félix Bautista entered his windup, reared back and blew a 99.2 mph sinker past a swinging Trent Grisham, notching a game-ending strikeout and sealing the Orioles’ 5-4 win over the Yankees on Wednesday night at Camden Yards.
With that, a tough April for Baltimore was over. The O’s (12-18) can turn the page and focus on May, which they hope will bring better health, improved play and, most importantly, more wins.
“Well, there's been a lot of adversity,” manager Brandon Hyde said in reflection. “It’s been a tough month.”
Of course, with 132 games to go, there’s ample time for things to get better for the Orioles. It’s even possible they’re in the midst of turning the corner right now.
The O’s -- who bounced back from Tuesday’s 15-3 loss -- took two of three games from American League East rival New York, improving to 2-6-2 in series this season. Their only previous series victory came when they won two of three at home against Cleveland from April 15-17 (the final two games marking their only consecutive wins this year).
Baltimore needs to hit better -- and it did Wednesday night.
“Just getting back to what we know and what we’ve done well, I feel like that’s the biggest thing,” shortstop Gunnar Henderson said. “Trying not to get out there and do stuff that we don’t know how to do. Just get back to the basics of the way we play ball, and that’s play hard, play fast and put a bunch of runs up quick.”
The O’s accomplished that via a four-run second inning featuring a two-run homer from Ryan Mountcastle (who snapped an 0-for-18 skid) and a go-ahead solo home run by Ramón Urías. They scored five runs for the first time since a 9-5 win over Cincinnati on April 19, ending a run of nine consecutive games with four or fewer.
However, the Orioles also must play cleaner defense and pitch better. They’ve struggled in many facets, but their 6.04 rotation ERA (28th in MLB) has often been the source of early deficits and the reason for games getting out of hand.
Baltimore has moved struggling right-hander Charlie Morton (9.45 ERA) to the bullpen temporarily to try to get him going, taking advantage of the upcoming schedule (off-days on Thursday and Monday) by utilizing only four starters.
Cade Povich did a good job of keeping the O’s in the finale vs. the Yanks by allowing three runs over 4 2/3 innings, then handed it over to the bullpen. Hyde used six relievers to cover 4 1/3 frames of one-run ball.
Of the several encouraging signs, the biggest may have been Bautista.
The 2023 All-Star closer picked up his fifth save (and his second in three nights against New York) by working a 1-2-3 ninth. Bautista, who missed all of the ‘24 season due to Tommy John surgery, lowered his ERA to 2.00 through nine appearances.
“He is back to being Félix,” Hyde said. “That is a really tough assignment for whoever’s going to face him in the ninth inning. I thought his stuff was exploding tonight. That was the best fastball we’ve seen.”
They were also the hardest fastballs Bautista has thrown this year. He set a new season high by hitting 99.3 mph on his first pitch to Grisham, then exceeded 99 for the second time on his final pitch, which left Yankees slugger Aaron Judge standing in the on-deck circle to end the night.
“I didn’t think about it in that way, but I knew [Judge] was coming up,” Bautista said via team interpreter Brandon Quinones. “So my mentality out there was to go out there and attack those guys, get out ahead in those counts with an early strike and then finish them off.”
As long as the Orioles can get the ball to Bautista with a late lead, they’re likely going to win more often than not. They need to play well enough to get to such a point.
Maybe nights like this will happen more in May. The optimism continues to radiate. There hasn’t been panic. Reinforcements will eventually come from an injured list featuring 13 players.
“I consider us a good team,” veteran center fielder Cedric Mullins recently said.
Now, it’s time for the O’s to build some momentum and start proving it.
“We have a lot of work to do rotation-wise. We have a lot of work to do offensively,” Hyde said. “We don’t play well defensively when we’re down a bunch of runs, and that’s inexperience and lack of veteran stuff on the field. We need to be better at that, and those are all learning experiences that these guys are going through.
“It hasn’t been smooth in any way. To win a series at home, to get an off-day, hopefully, this is how we’re going to play going forward.”