Rookie roughed up by Boston
Hess can’t make it out of fourth inning as Orioles lose sixth straight game
After David Hess faced the Boston Red Sox last month at Fenway Park, he took many lessons from his second major league start, none more important than the fact that pitches left over the plate will easily leave the ballpark.
He allowed three homers that night to one of baseball’s best batting orders, but in the three starts that followed, Hess was sharp, posting quality starts in each outing as it became apparent that he learned something from that rocky outing in Boston.
But facing the Red Sox again Tuesday night — this time at a half-filled Camden Yards — Hess wouldn’t get out of the fourth inning in the Orioles’ 6-4 loss in the shortest outing of his brief major league tenure.
The Orioles are a major league worst 19-47, and have lost six straight games and13 of their past 15. They are 0-9 against the Red Sox.
Hess allowed two homers Tuesday — a two-run shot to Rafael Devers in the second inning and a solo blast to Andrew Benintendi in the third — but the composure that Hess has shown through his first month with the Orioles was absent as he allowed nine base runners (five hits and a career-high four walks).
The biggest compliment Hess was paid through his first five starts was that he displayed a unique aggressiveness in attacking hitters and pounding the strike zone, Today, 3:05 p.m. TV: MASN2 Radio: 105.7 FM
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but he left his sixth big league start Tuesday after allowing a run following a bases-loaded walk.
Hess allowed five runs over 3 innings in what was the worst outing of his major league career. Despite recording 14 of 20 firstpitch strikes, he found himself in too many deep counts.
In six big league starts, Hess has allowed eight homers, and 13 of the15 runs he’s allowed have come by the home run.
After receiving an early lead on Joey Rickard’s leadoff homer in the bottom of the first, Hess gave it back in the top of the second. He issued a five-pitch walk to Xander Bogaerts, then elevated a 2-1 fastball to Devers that went over the right-center-field fence.
Andrew Benintendi jumped on a 1-1 changeup in the third inning, sending it over the center-field wall to put the Red Sox up 3-1.
The Orioles scraped a run together in the bottom of that inning on Danny Valencia’s twoout RBI single, but Hess gave it back by allowing singles to three of the first four batters he faced in the fourth. His bases-loaded walk to Benintendi knocked him out of the game.
Reliever Miguel Castro allowed another run to score that inning on his major league-leading third balk of the season.
Both of the homers Hess allowed were hit by left-handed hitters. Five of the nine lefties he faced reach base, and lefties are batting .305 off him this season.
Former Orioles farmhand Eduardo Rodríguez allowed 10 base runners (eight hits and two walks) in 52⁄ innings, but he held the Orioles to two runs.