Better late than never
Villar, Mancini provide power punch after quiet 4 innings
For four innings, it looked like business as usual for an Orioles team that has struggled mightily to play well at home.
Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Thomas Pannone carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning and looked particularly dominant doing it, requiring just those four frames to record eight of his career-high nine strikeouts.
What happened next proved how fickle this game can be. Jonathan Villar opened the fifth with a home run to left and Trey Mancini chimed in two outs later with a long three-run shot to help propel the Orioles to a 6-4 win Saturday night at Camden Yards.
In between, Stevie Wilkerson and Hanser Alberto singled to set the table for Mancini’s 26th home run of the season.
He had set his career high two nights earlier in the opener of four-game series and now has nine home runs in his past 16 games.
The four-run outburst matched the Orioles offensive production for the first 22 innings of the series and mollified manager Brandon Hyde, who clearly was not happy with the swings his team was taking after returning from an uplifting 5-4 West Coast road trip.
Though that 4-2 lead did not hold up, the Orioles added two more runs on an RBI single by Alberto and an RBI groundout by Mancini in the seventh inning to provide the margin of victory.
That would come too late for starting pitcher Dylan Bundy, who pitched into the sixth inning and allowed just two runs on five hits while striking out seven. Mychal Givens, who was called upon to stop a game-tying two-run Jays rally, got the decision and improved his record to 2-5.
Left-hander Paul Fry came on to pitch a scoreless ninth to record his third save.
The game turned back in the Orioles favor during that Toronto rally. The Jays had already tied the game and appeared to take the lead when Freddy Galvis doubled and Bo Bichette raced all the way home from first base, but the Orioles challenged the safe call at the plate and wiped that run off the scoreboard.
The Orioles (37-73) also needed a big defensive play in the eighth after Vladimir Guerrero Jr. led off with a single and Givens struck out the next two batters. Right fielder Brandon Drury hit a hot smash up the middle and Villar had to go airborne to make a spectacular stop before making a strong throw to get the final out on a close play at first.