Falling short despite big swings

O’s belt 3 homers, but can’t stop Calhoun, Andrus

The Orioles seemed determined to flip the script on Friday night after a frustrating offensive performance in Thursday’s series opener against the Texas Rangers. However, three long balls could not prevent them from coming up short again.

Trey Mancini, Richie Martin and Anthony Santander each homered in support of starting pitcher Dylan Bundy, but the bullpen could not hold a two-run lead and the Rangers rallied for a 7-6 victory before an announced crowd of 10,596 at Oriole Park.

Outfielder Willie Calhoun homered in his first two at-bats and drove in a career-high four runs and shortstop Elvis Andrus delivered a key two-run single in the seventh inning to put the Rangers ahead to stay.

Bundy wasn’t particularly sharp, allowing five runs on eight hits over six-plus innings. He was staked to an early lead when Martin hit a towering three-run homer into the left-center-field bleachers, only to allow a three-run shot to Calhoun to tie the game an inning later.

The two homers allowed lifted Bundy into a tie with David Hess for the team lead in that dubious department with 28. He led the majors with 41 allowed last season.

Calhoun had put Texas in front with a solo homer in the first inning and Mancini quickly matched it in the Orioles’ first at-bat. Santander broke the 4-4 tie in the fifth with his18th home run of the season, a two-run shot that also scored Hanser Alberto.

Bundy settled in after the three-run fourth and had retired 10 of 11 batters when he allowed a double to center fielder Scott Heineman to lead off the seventh and bring manager Brandon Hyde out of the dugout.

Things deteriorated quickly from there. Left-hander Paul Fry came on to walk the next two batters and allow an RBI single to Shin-Soo Choo. Shawn Armstrong came on with the bases loaded an no outs and allowed the two-run single to Andrus before working out of the jam.

For the second night in a row, the Orioles had base runners all over the place and did a much better job of taking advantage of their opportunities … to a point.

They had two runners on base with one out in the eighth inning and failed to score, then pushed runners to second and third with one out in the ninth, only to come up empty again when Mancini struck out and Santander fouled out.