Orioles’ 2-out rally in 9th goes to waste in 9-8 walk-off loss to Guardians as bullpen is again asked for too much

In the month since Félix Bautista’s elbow injury, the Orioles surprisingly haven’t suffered from the All-Star closer’s absence all that often. But the effects of two straight weeks of games are beginning to show.

Baltimore lost to the Cleveland Guardians, 9-8, on Friday night, the team’s third consecutive defeat with each landing on a reliever. Yennier Cano, a fellow All-Star who has served as the Orioles’ primary replacement for Bautista, wasted an Orioles rally in the top of the ninth by allowing a walk-off, two-run double by David Fry.

The only salve on the night was the Tampa Bay Rays falling to the Toronto Blue Jays, dropping Baltimore’s magic number to clinch the American League East to six.

“That’s a tough loss,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “We just didn’t pitch well.”

The loss marked another recent matchup in which a lot was asked of the Orioles’ bullpen as they played their 15th of 17 straight games. During that stretch, the Orioles have cycled through optionable relievers in their final bullpen spot, striving to keep fresh arms available. Since its most recent day off Sept. 7, Baltimore has averaged more than four relievers per game with a bullpen ERA of 4.66, meaning the unit is allowing an earned run about every other inning.

Hyde bemoaned Baltimore’s inability to put batters away Friday; the bullpen’s strikeout rate in the past 15 games is 13.9%, with no other team entering the day with that figure below 18%. Before he suffered a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament Aug. 25, Bautista’s strikeout rate of 46.4% led the majors.

“I think not only us, but baseball overall just misses him,” Cano said through team interpreter Brandon Quinones. “Obviously, he went out there and [closed] better than anyone else, so he’s definitely missed, but we just try to go out there and get the job done. Tonight, we lost the battle, but we haven’t really lost the entire war yet.”

Down a run with no one on and two outs against Cleveland’s All-Star closer, Emmanuel Clase, the Orioles (95-59) rallied for a pair of runs. Clase hit Anthony Santander on a 1-2 count and allowed an infield single by Ryan O’Hearn, and both runners advanced on a wild pitch before Aaron Hicks’ double down the line brought them home.

Baltimore’s sixth reliever of the game, Cano got ahead 1-2 on the first batter of the ninth, Andrés Giménez, but surrendered a double, quickly putting the tying runner in scoring position. A ground ball advanced Giménez to third, and Hyde elected to intentionally walk Will Brennan, a left-handed hitter, to have Cano face Fry, a right-handed batter, with the possibility of the sinkerballer getting a game-ending double play.

Instead, putting the potential winning run on base backfired when Fry launched Cano’s first-pitch sinker to the wall in left center, scoring Giménez and Brennan and ending the game. The walk-off temporarily kept the Guardians (74-81) in the playoff race, only for the Minnesota Twins to eliminate them and secure the AL Central title soon after.

“I don’t really think it’s been a difficult stretch; I just think it’s been a long season, and we’re just in one of those stretches right now,” Cano said. “The games have been going like that lately, and I think the team on the other side, they don’t really have too much to play for right now, so they’re kind of playing loose, they’re just playing good baseball there, hitting the ball well. They just hit really good pitches tonight.”

Cleveland’s ninth-inning rally marked the third lead the Orioles were unable to retain. After Baltimore plated two first-inning runs, starter Dean Kremer allowed the Guardians to do the same. He gave up another run in the second, and although he left the bases loaded, he needed 56 pitches to get the first six outs, spelling early trouble for Baltimore’s taxed bullpen.

Defensive errors from Santander and Gunnar Henderson, the Orioles’ offensive heroes on the night before Hicks’ big hit, washed away a 5-3 lead in the fourth. After Kremer opened the frame with a walk, Santander slipped on a line drive to right field for a two-base error, having made a diving catch earlier in the game and adding a sliding one later. A one-out single got Cleveland within a run before a hard-hit grounder ate up Henderson at shortstop for an error that tied the game and ended Kremer’s outing.

“We made a lot of mistakes,” Hyde said.

Tyler Wells entered and allowed a go-ahead sacrifice fly, the first of six straight batters he retired in his first major league appearance since late July. The three unearned runs in the frame left Kremer with six runs allowed in 3 1/3 innings. In four September starts, Kremer has completed the fifth only once and has yet to record an out beyond it, allowing 12 runs (nine earned) with a 1.788 WHIP over 17 1/3 innings.

“We’re all a little tired,” Kremer said. “It’s towards the end of the season, but I need to find ways to eat more innings. That way, we can give the bullpen a bit more rest, and we knew that kind of going in where we were playing 17 straight. The off day on Monday’s definitely going to help.”

Wells’ quick two innings, requiring only 19 pitches, helped bridge the game, but Hyde still needed four more relievers to get through the eighth. The Orioles tied the game in the top of the seventh on Santander’s third RBI hit of the night, having driven in Henderson on a double in the first before coming around to score on a wild pitch and delivering a run-scoring single to cap a three-run third. Santander and Henderson combined for five hits, four runs and four RBIs out of the leadoff and third spots in Baltimore’s order.

Pinch-hitting for Austin Hays with the bases loaded, Cedric Mullins struck out on three pitches to end the top of the seventh. In the inning’s bottom half, Danny Coulombe, who took the loss in Wednesday’s finale with the Houston Astros, allowed two of the three batters he faced to reach base, with Brennan providing a go-ahead single off Jorge López.

The Orioles had won 24 of their past 25 games when scoring at least four runs.

“That’s baseball sometimes: You win some, you lose some,” Cano said. “Like the Tampa series, we lost the first two, and we came back the next two and won those games, so that’s going be baseball sometimes, but I have 100% confidence that we’re gonna be able to play really good the rest of the way and win the division.”

Orioles at Guardians

Saturday, 6:10 p.m.

TV: MASN2

Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM

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