Five things we learned from the Orioles’ 3-2 loss to the Texas Rangers in ALDS Game 1

After enjoying a festive scene before the game, the Orioles came up empty on too many at-bats with runners on base in losing their American League Division Series opener, 3-2, to the Texas Rangers.

Here are five things we learned from the game.

Baltimore’s reunion with postseason baseball went from festive to tense in a hurry

Playoff baseball returned to Baltimore at 2:16 p.m. Saturday with a 96-mph sinker from Orioles starter Kyle Bradish, fouled off by American League Most Valuable Player candidate Marcus Semien.

Orange-clad fans whipped their orange towels in the air. They bellowed for each Oriole who walked onto the field via orange carpet. Joan Jett, a fan of the club since before the last time it won the World Series, sang The Star-Spangled Banner. Bradish felt the ground shake each time he finished off a hitter. The atmosphere suited the occasion.

Three hours and nine minutes later, that festive bliss was replaced by somber reckoning with a harder reality. The Orioles, having squandered a sharp outing from Bradish and scoring opportunities in each of the last three innings, were two games from elimination against an opponent that won’t stop hitting.

The screws tighten so quickly in a five-game series. The Orioles have rebounded from difficult days so often this season that we could call it a habit, but they have not done it with the potential for a final loss staring them in the face.

Next up is Texas’ ace, Jordan Montgomery, who shut out the Tampa Bay Rays over seven innings Tuesday and hasn’t allowed more than one earned run in any of his past five starts.

The Orioles believe they will shake off their difficulties as easily as they did the raindrops that delayed Game 1. “I don’t think the moment has ever been too big for this team this season,” manager Brandon Hyde said.

He believes his young players already persevered through an experience akin to postseason pressure as they fought off the Rays to win the AL East.

“We’ll do what we’ve done all year,” Bradish said. “We don’t get too down.”

That resilient self-image will be tested like never before Sunday.

The Rangers hit well enough to beat even a top pitcher who’s on his game

Bradish finished off a 15-pitch first inning by fanning Texas’ top long ball threat, Adolis García, with a 97-mph sinker.

His choice of pitch was telling. Bradish turned the sinker from a minor weapon in his arsenal (4.3% of his pitches in 2022, per FanGraphs) to a major one in 2023 (21% of his pitches). He became the Orioles’ ace in the process, a status few envisioned when Bradish was part of the 2019 trade return for ex-phenom Dylan Bundy.

He’s one of the great player development stories in an organization full of them.

Almost 40 years to the day after Mike Boddicker struck out 14 Chicago White Sox on his way to a 4-0 victory in the AL Championship Series, Bradish cut a similar early pace against the slugging Rangers. He throws with more zip than Boddicker, but his methodology — throwing any of his five pitches for a strike on any count — is similar enough. His sinker, four-seam fastball and slider popped.

Sharp as he was, this Texas lineup, which Rangers manager Bruce Bochy called the best he has managed, is almost impossible to hold down. With one out in the fourth, García ripped a double down the left field line, and 21-year-old rookie Evan Carter drove him in with a rocket into the right field corner. It seems almost unfair that the Rangers added a preternaturally mature hitter such as the 21-year-old Carter, currently hotter than the sun, to a core that already included Semien, García and Corey Seager. But they did, and he quickly scored the game’s second run on a line drive single to left by catcher Jonah Heim.

“They had two hard-hit balls,” Bradish lamented afterward.

He made some terrific pitches from there, striking out Semien on a curveball with the bases loaded to avoid further catastrophe and striking out two more with Seager on first in the fifth. But he left the game trailing 2-1 on a day when he’d fanned nine and walked just one. That’s life against the AL’s top offense.

Bruce Bochy took a risk starting Andrew Heaney and got his desired result

Texas’ venerable manager could have chosen right-hander Dane Dunning, his most consistent starting pitcher this year if not his best. Instead, he went with the feast-or-famine southpaw, Heaney, who’d pitched a terrible game against the Orioles in April and an excellent one in May.

He did not present this as a choice between right and left — “They were going to match up,” Bochy said — though he did keep Ryan O’Hearn out of the starting lineup and impose a more difficult matchup on the Orioles’ most potent hitter, Gunnar Henderson.

“We looked at how well he’s been throwing the ball,” Bochy said, opting for the simplest explanation. “He’s our freshest guy.”

He pointed to the 4 1/3 shutout innings Heaney delivered in a must-win game against the Seattle Mariners on the penultimate day of the regular season.

He wasn’t as good against the Orioles but gave Bochy what he wanted, facing one more batter than the minimum through three innings.

Hyde said he “threw the ball well to start the game.”

As soon as Heaney showed a hint of vulnerability in the fourth — an Anthony Santander walk followed by Ryan Mountcastle’s RBI double — Bochy turned to Dunning to face Aaron Hicks. This indicated he had planned to use Heaney and Dunning as a two-headed starter all along.

They combined for 5 2/3 innings and handed a lead to Texas’ bullpen — good enough.

The Orioles need more good at-bats from their best hitters

Santander showed up, scoring the Orioles’ first run after he drew a walk in the fourth and drilling a home run into the right field bleachers for their second.

But Adley Rutschman and Henderson, the players expected to lead the Orioles for years of contention to come, did little to help him in their postseason debuts.

Rutschman did not make hard contact in four plate appearances.

Henderson, who hit 63 percentage points lower against left-handers than right-handers this season, endured an even rougher day, striking out twice and popping out in his first three at-bats and getting thrown out on an attempted steal after he singled to lead off the ninth.

After Hicks led off the seventh with a walk, the Orioles managed a weak fly ball to right field and a pair of strikeouts, the second by the powerful O’Hearn, against Josh Sborz, a reliever with a 5.50 ERA during the regular season.

After Austin Hays and Rutschman walked to lead off the eighth, Santander hit into a double play, and Mountcastle struck out to end the threat.

It was not just that they made outs in clutch spots. It was the lack of pressure they put on a fragile Texas pitching staff.

Afterward, they said they did not see deep flaws in their approach. “We went out there and took our at-bats,” Henderson said when asked if they had rushed. “The ball doesn’t fall the way you want it to sometimes. It’s just baseball.”

“I had a string of good swings, just not a string of hits,” center fielder Cedric Mullins said.

The Rangers don’t seem likely to stop hitting. If the Orioles don’t answer with patience and hard contact, they won’t keep pace.

“We’re just not going to — this is a tough team to beat if you score two runs,” Hyde said. “We didn’t have the offense today. We didn’t create traffic.”

Grayson Rodriguez had to earn the right to pitch with the season hanging in the balance

When Orioles fans concocted their most optimistic visions for the season, a breakout for Rodriguez, perhaps the top pitching prospect in baseball to begin 2023, was key to the narrative.

Reality was harsher. For all his 99 mph fastballs and unsettling changeups, the strapping Texan could not finish off major league hitters; he lasted past the fifth inning once during his initial run of 10 starts in April and May.

The Orioles dispatched him to Triple-A Norfolk for more seasoning, a “tough pill to swallow” in Hyde’s words. With a playoff berth realistically in reach, they did not think it best for him to learn on the job. But what would Rodriguez do with this setback?

Well, he took the feedback from those 10 starts — major league hitters didn’t care if he threw 100 mph when he couldn’t paint the strike zone — and transformed himself into a more aggressive and more precise pitcher.

“He went down with an absolute purpose and goal,” Hyde said.

When Rodriguez rejoined the Orioles in mid-July, he was no longer the same guy. Gone were the meltdowns, replaced by six- and seven-inning quality starts. When the Orioles needed to bounce back after two losses to the Tampa Bay Rays in a crucial September series, Rodriguez gave them eight shutout innings.

“Whatever adjustment he made when he went down, he’s been a completely different pitcher since he came back up,” Hays said.

That explains why Hyde did not hesitate to pencil Rodriguez in as his Game 2 starter against the Rangers, knowing the 23-year-old might be in position to pull the Orioles out of a hole.

Rodriguez coveted the responsibility. The thought of facing the Rangers’ MVP-caliber hitters exhilarates him. “This feels like normal baseball to me,” he said.

ALDS, Game 2

Rangers at Orioles

Sunday, 4:07 p.m.

TV: FS1

Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM

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