Dean Kremer allowed three earned runs or fewer in his final 10 outings of a breakout 2022 season. His search for that level of consistency continued Saturday.
In the Orioles’ 7-4 loss to open a doubleheader with the Detroit Tigers, Kremer gave up five runs and a career-high 11 hits in five innings. In five of his six starts, he has allowed at least four earned runs and now has a 6.67 ERA despite all but one of his outings coming against teams that entered Saturday with losing records.
“So far, it’s been frustrating,” Kremer said. “I feel like my stuff is continuously getting better, command of it also slowly getting better, but just got to find a way to miss more barrels.”
Those struggles now include the Tigers (10-15), who the Orioles (17-9) had beaten in each of their first four matchups. Detroit went to work early on ending that skid, scoring a run and loading the bases on a walk and three hits softer than 71 mph, the last of which was a slow roller up the first base line that Kremer didn’t field cleanly. Matt Vierling then singled into center to score two.
“Frustrating day overall,” Kremer said. “There was a decent amount of soft contact. Going back and looking over it, there was a lot of balls outside the zone just kept getting hit into the shallow part of the outfield.”
Orioles catcher James McCann continued to perform well against his former organization, hitting his second home run of the season and against Detroit in the top of the second inning, but Kremer surrendered runs in the second and third. Although he managed scoreless fourth and fifth innings, he allowed multiple base runners in each of his frames. Five of the hits he allowed left the bat at no more than 76 mph, but the other six had triple-digit exit velocities.
“I just didn’t think he was commanding it like he wanted to,” manager Brandon Hyde said.
Behind Kremer, pitching prospect DL Hall, called up as the Orioles’ 27th man for the doubleheader, allowed two runs in three innings, striking out seven. He needed 75 pitches to get nine outs, but he spared Baltimore from needing to use another reliever on a two-game day.
McCann’s home run accounted for Baltimore’s only offense in 5 2/3 innings from Tigers left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez, a former Orioles farmhand who took a perfect game into the seventh inning against them Sunday at Camden Yards. Against right-hander Mason Englert in the sixth, McCann popped out with the bases loaded while representing the tying run.
The Orioles broke through in the eighth, when Jorge Mateo hit a three-run home run of Englert. The blast was Mateo’s fifth, a total he didn’t reach until June 25 last year.
Ryan Mountcastle, whose run of poor luck continued when he lost a bloop hit to a diving catch in the third, recorded hits in his next two at-bats, but he struck out swinging with two runners on base to end the game.
Around the horn
- Adley Rutschman was out of the Orioles’ lineup for the first time this season. The second-year star had started at catcher or designated hitter in each of Baltimore’s first 25 games. He pinch-hit for McCann in the eighth and grounded out to second. Hyde said he did not consider having Rutschman pinch-hit for McCann in the sixth, which would have required having Rutschman catch at least three innings before also catching the second game.
- Outfielder Austin Hays returned to the lineup after exiting Tuesday’s game with a bruised right middle finger. He opened the game with a double and finished 2-for-4 with a walk.
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