Bundy brilliant in shutout win
Works into 8th, provides Orioles with best start of season in chilling Rays’ bats
The last time Dylan Bundy completed seven innings before Saturday night, Jonathan Schoop was the Orioles’ starting second baseman.
A start such as the one Bundy delivered in the Orioles’ 3-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, pitching 7 1/3 innings in Baltimore’s first shutout of the season, was a long time coming. The 26-year-old righthander hadn’t completed seven innings since July 29 of last season, back before the Orioles’ teardown was complete.
That start also came against the Rays, and even then Bundy didn’t look as sharp as he did facing them Saturday.
The outing was the Orioles’ longest start of the season and marked only the fifth start of at least six innings and second of at least seven. It lowered Bundy’s ERA to 5.30 after an inconsistent start to the season. Bundy allowed at least three runs in each of his first six starts, but he was able to end Saturday unscathed with the help of reliever Shawn Armstrong and a favorable umpire ruling.
Bundy’s night ended one out into the eighth inning when Michael Perez doubled for Tampa Bay’s first hit since the second. Armstrong entered to face Willy Adames as Bundy exited to a standing ovation. Adames hit a light chopper back toward the mound, but Armstrong’s throw sailed over first baseman Chris Davis as Perez came home.
After a long discussion with Rays manager Kevin Cash, umpires ruled that Adames had been too far inside the first-base line and was called out, with Perez returning to second base. Armstrong ended the inning and closed Bundy’s scoreless line with a three-pitch strikeout of Brandon Lowe (Maryland).
Bundy’s previous starts in 2019 had been littered with home runs and bad breaks. There were none of either Saturday, not even on his first pitch, which Lowe hit to right for a single. Bundy needed only eight more pitches to finish the frame without issue.
The Orioles (12-22) backed him with an early run. Yonny Chirinos, who the Rays (21-12) sent to the mound in place of opener Ryne Stanek because of a threat of rain in Baltimore, allowed a first-pitch double to Jonathan Villar to begin the bottom of the first. Trey Mancini followed with his first hit in nine at-bats since re-entering the lineup after a finger injury, putting runners on the corners. Dwight Smith Jr. grounded into a double play, but Villar came home for the game’s first run.
The lead looked as if it could be short-lived when Avisail Garcia, who hit a two-run homer off Bundy when the teams met in Florida, started the second with a double, but Bundy retired the next three batters to strand Garcia at third and begin a run of 10 straight Rays retired.
In that time, the Orioles tripled their lead. Stevie Wilkerson and Austin Wynns, the bottom two hitters in manager Brandon Hyde’s lineup, opened the third with back-to-back singles before Villar brought Wilkerson home with a fielder’s choice, and Smith smashed a solo shot, his sixth home run, to dead center in the fourth.
It was more than enough for Bundy, though he ran into trouble in the fifth. A four-pitch walk to Daniel Robertson ended his consecutive outs streak, and he hit Michael Perez to bring the tying run to the plate. Bundy recovered and got Adames to ground into an inning-ending double play.
When Bundy took the mound in the eighth inning, it marked the first time he had done so since pitching eight shutout innings against the Boston Red Sox nearly 11 months ago. When the announced crowd of 15,241 rose to cheer him as he exited, that, too, was long awaited.