Rodriguez, sluggers overcome cold
Homers from O’Hearn, Mullins, Henderson power O’s to 5-2 start
PITTSBURGH — Every aspect of playing baseball in a 34-degree wind chill with a mixture of rain, snow and hail is difficult. But nothing in this weather is more difficult than hitting a high-90s mph fastball.
Friday’s matchup in Steel City featured football weather with two of the most exciting young fireballers in baseball: Pirates rookie Jared Jones against Orioles sophomore Grayson Rodriguez.
“Better get it on the barrel,” manager Brandon Hyde advised pregame about hitting in the near-freezing temperatures.
Ryan O’Hearn, Gunnar Henderson and Cedric Mullins did just that with solo home runs, while Rodriguez was strong again in the Orioles’ 5-2 win to spoil the Pirates’ home opener.
“That was really, really tough conditions to play in,” Hyde said, later adding: “The snow and the hail in the face is never real pleasant during a Major League Baseball game.”
O’Hearn and Henderson homered off Jones to give the Orioles an early 2-0 lead, and Mullins tacked on an insurance run in the eighth with a long ball of his own. Rodriguez limited his damage by escaping jams and striking out seven, allowing two runs on solo homers in 6 ⅓ innings for his second win in as many starts this season.
Rodriguez, a Nacogdoches, Texas, native, said it was “fun to experience” pitching in those conditions, although he joked that it got “a little hard to see home plate” when he was pitching through hail in the second inning.
“I’m from Texas, I don’t see that a whole lot,” Rodriguez said. “The hail was different. That was a first, that’s for sure.”
Henderson, a Selma, Alabama, native, also doesn’t have much experience playing through Friday’s elements, but he said he “kind of enjoyed it” while adding his “hands are still thawing out.” The 22-year-old is just glad he didn’t have to hit while the hail was falling. The sun was almost peering through the clouds when Henderson blasted his home run.
“There were definitely some unfortunate at-bats whenever it was starting to come down pretty hard out there,” he said.
Baltimore is 5-2 and extends its American League-best streak of regular-season series without being swept to 94, although the club was swept out of the playoffs last October.
The Orioles’ three-game series in Pittsburgh (6-2) this weekend — the club’s first at PNC Park since September 2017 — came off a 4-2 homestand with two walkoff
wins but inconsistent offensive performances. Baltimore’s bats largely struggled against the Kansas City Royals earlier this week, with many short at-bats and chases out of the zone.
Against Jones, who struck out
10 in his MLB debut last week, the Orioles returned to their usual ways at the plate. Jones, 22, was still excellent, striking out seven and collecting 21 swings-and-misses in six innings. But the Orioles managed six hits off him — and six more against the Pirates’ bullpen — for perhaps the club’s best offensive performance since it scored 24 runs over the first two games of the season.
O’Hearn kept up with a high heater from Jones for a solo shot in the second inning — his first of the season — to give Baltimore an early 1-0 lead. The big fly narrowly cleared the center field wall, traveling 389 feet in what was only a home run at PNC Park, not any of MLB’s other 29 stadiums.
Henderson then led off the third with a homer of his own, a 407-foot shot to straightaway center field that barely cleared the fence and outfielder Michael A. Taylor’s glove. The 2023 AL Rookie of the Year has two home runs and a .910 OPS through Baltimore’s first seven games.
“Nice to see us get a couple homers there,” Hyde said. “We had our work cut out for us, and we left some runs out there throughout the game and we’ve got to do a better job, but we got some big hits.”
Before Mullins’ homer off the right field foul pole in the eighth, the Orioles added two more runs in the seventh to give the bullpen breathing room. Ramón Urías, who was 0-for-15 to begin the season, and Henderson both hit one-out singles and scored on opposite-field hits by Adley Rutschman, a single, and Anthony Santander, a double.
Henderson, Rutschman, Santander and O’Hearn each recorded two hits, as eight of the Orioles’ nine batters in the starting lineup recording at least one knock.
“Our offense is impressive,” Rodriguez said. “Hopefully we get to see them do that a lot. They can swing the bats really well. Obviously today is a tough day to hit. Our guys going out there and swinging the bat as well as they did, that’s a huge plus for our pitching staff and that’s going to take us a long way this season.”
In the third, Pirates stars Oneil Cruz and Ke’Bryan Hayes singled to put runners on the corners with one out. But Rodriguez got Jack Suwinski and Andrew McCutchen to pop out to end the threat. Mullins helped his pitcher in the fourth with a diving catch in center field, and Rodriguez (2-0) helped himself by striking out the side in the sixth.
In his first two starts, Rodriguez has a 2.19 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 12 innings. He’s just the third pitcher in Orioles history to post an ERA that low with at least 16 punchouts through two starts to a season, including Dave McNally in 1970 and Bob
Turley in 1954.
“From the first pitch, I thought he was on,” Hyde said of Rodriguez. “Great pitch mix, kept them off balance, really good fastball throughout. Outstanding performance.”
Pirates leadoff hitter Oneil Cruz cut the Orioles’ advantage in half with a solo blast off Rodriguez in the fifth. Pittsburgh added another in the seventh when Jared Triolo led off the frame with a homer off Rodriguez, who went back out for the inning after throwing 92 pitches across his first six.
Danny Coulombe, Yennier Cano and Craig Kimbrel followed Rodriguez with perfect appearances, retiring all eight batters in order with five strikeouts. Kimbrel, who blew his first save opportunity as an Oriole on Monday, retired the side in order in the ninth for his 418th career save, which is eighth on MLB’s all-time list.
“That’s all we can ask for from our bullpen,” Hyde said.
The Orioles have two more games in Pittsburgh and three in Boston, with several games featuring sub-50-degree temperatures, on this road trip. Henderson said the Orioles have “embraced the conditions” well, but that doesn’t mean they want to play in them forever.
“I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say I didn’t want to just have a normal game, no rain, just have some sunshine out there,” Henderson said with a smile. “Eventually, the sunshine will be out.”