No quality start for Bundy, but a quality win
Trumbo, Davis hit HRs; Britton retires three straight in 9th
SAN FRANCISCO — The Orioles’ string of consecutive quality starts ended Friday night against the San Francisco Giants, but that didn’t take anything away from how well right-hander Dylan Bundy pitched in his sixth major league start.
Bundy’s transition to the starting rotation has been surprisingly smooth, especially given a history of injuries that kept him off the mound for most of the previous three seasons, and the 23-year-old worked through the Giants lineup with precision in a 5-2 Orioles win before an announced sellout of 41,479 at AT&T Park.
Bundy didn’t have his best stuff — he struck out just three batters, his fewest since becoming a starter, and walked two — but he managed to be dominant. He held San Francisco to one run on three hits over 52⁄3 innings, winning his third straight start. Over his past three outings, Bundy has allowed just three runs over 18 innings for an ERA of 1.45.
“He just didn’t have a feel for his breaking ball tonight. It may have had something to do with the cold weather,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. “And the changeup is such a feel pitch, both of them. That was good to see him compete and figure it out because big-league guys have 30, 35 starts — they’re going to carry more than one pitch out there [in] maybe half of them and all three maybe three or four.”
With the win and the Toronto Blue Jays’ 5-3 loss to the Houston Astros earlier in the night, the Orioles (65-50) regained possession of first place in the American League East by a half-game.
The only run off Bundy (6-3) came on Denard Span’s RBI double in the third inning after a leadoff single by Joe Panik. Bundy prevented further damage, escaping a two-on, one-out jam by inducing Brandon Belt to hit into a 4-6-3 double play.
“Yeah, you’ve just got to focus a little bit more, I think, and you’ve got to get the ball over the plate and try to let them get themselves out,” Bundy said.
Bundy retired eight of the last nine batters he faced before he was pulled with the bases empty and two outs in the sixth.
“Give him the ball and go in the dugout,” Bundy said. “That’s all you can do, but I wanted to go six, obviously.” Bats come out: The Orioles hit two homers, one each from sluggers Mark Trumbo and Chris Davis, a good sign for the recently struggling offense. Both home runs came off Giants starter Matt Cain, who allowed 11 hits and one walk over four innings.
Trumbo hit a tape-measure two-run shot — his 33rd homer of the season — just in front of the left-field concourse, a mammoth blast that traveled an estimated 441 feet. Over his past two games, Trumbo has driven in seven runs, including his first Orioles grand slam Thursday.
Davis opened the fifth inning by sending a 1-1 pitch from Cain into the left-field stands, his 24th homer of the season. It was his second in 25 games since the All-Star break, but Davis is 6-for-12 over his past three games.
Center fielder Adam Jones, who had two singles and an RBI, recorded his fifth multihit game over his past six and is hitting .432 (16-for-37) eight games into the team’s 10-game road trip. Britton quiets Giants: Showalter would have preferred not to use closer Zach Britton in the ninth inning Friday, but he was quick to go to Britton after the Giants scored a run off Brad Brach.
Brach allowed two singles to open the ninth — and threw a wild pitch in between that moved Angel Pagan to second on his way to scoring on the second single — before he was pulled.
Britton threw 25 pitches the previous afternoon in Oakland, stranding three runners in the ninth, but he retired all three batters he faced Friday. He struck out catcher Buster Posey, induced a groundout from Brandon Crawford and struck out Hunter Pence.
Right-hander Mychal Givens (two strikeouts in one perfect inning) and left-hander Donnie Hart (11⁄3 perfect innings), who was recalled from Double-A Bowie earlier in the day to help against the Giants’ left-handed-heavy lineup, combined to retire 13 straight batters in relief of Bundy before Brach entered in the ninth. BALTIMORE Jones cf Kim lf Machado 3b Trumbo rf Reimold rf Davis 1b Schoop 2b Wieters c Hardy ss Bundy p Hart p TOTALS SAN FRAN. Span cf Pagan lf Belt 1b Posey c Crawford ss Pence rf Nunez 3b a-Blanco ph Panik 2b Cain p Gillaspie 3b b-Adnza ph-3b TOTALS Baltimore San Francisco 022 001 010 000
RH000—5 001—2 a-lined out for Kontos in the 7th. b-grounded out for Gillaspie in the 8th. E: Crawford (11). LOB: Baltimore 7, San Francisco 4. 2B: Kim (11), Schoop (31), Wieters (11), Span (17), Pence (13). HR: Trumbo (33), off Cain; Davis (24), off Cain. RBIs: Jones (67), Trumbo 2 (84), Davis (62), Wieters (43), Span (34), Belt (58). SO: Kim (1), Machado (1), Trumbo (2), Davis (1), Schoop (1), Hardy (2), Bundy (2), Hart (1), Belt (1), Posey (2), Crawford (2), Pence (1), Gillaspie (1). BALTIMORE Bundy W,6-3 Givens Hart Brach Brttn S,36-36 SAN FRAN. Cain L,4-7 Kontos Peavy 4 3 2
H11 0 0 5 0 0 5 0 0 1 2 0 7 1 3 5.47 2.11 5.35 Cain pitched to 1 batter in the 5th. Brach pitched to 2 batters in the 9th. Inherited runners-scored: Britton 1-0. WP: Brach. Umpires: H, Alan Porter; 1B, Brian O’Nora; 2B, Jeff Kellogg; 3B, John Tumpane. Time: 3:01. A: 41,479.