Jack Flaherty was tense.
The bases were loaded for the second time of the evening. Flaherty gave up a double to Alex Bregman, then intentionally walked Kyle Tucker and hit José Abreu. Two strikes were on the count in a one-run game that could easily balloon into four if Flaherty couldn’t get out of his own mess.
He let the pitch clock wind almost all the way down. Then he stepped off and returned to sneak a slider into the bottom right corner of the strike zone, getting Jeremy Peña looking to end the inning.
It wasn’t quite the honeymoon bliss Flaherty experienced in his first start in Toronto last week, but he still escaped a stressful start with only three earned runs allowed in five innings, proving he can handle the high-caliber situations he’ll find himself in as Baltimore approaches the playoffs.
It was enough to keep the Orioles in the game, but they still ended up falling to the Astros for the second night in a row, this time by an 8-2 final at Camden Yards.
Flaherty, though, wants to do better for his new team.
“Getting through five isn’t going to get it done,” he said. “It’s great to limit damage and make some pitches in big spots, but I had a chance there to find a way to get through six. My job is to find a way to get through six.”
Flaherty, acquired from the Cardinals minutes before the Aug. 1 trade deadline, was needed to provide depth and experience to an otherwise overworked, inexperienced rotation. He didn’t have the best first half in St. Louis, pitching to a 4.43 ERA on a team unexpectedly falling further and further out of contention.
His first outing with the Orioles on Aug. 3, though, was much improved. Maybe it was a fresh start, or the adrenaline from representing a first-place team. Whatever it was, he gave up just one run in six innings.
His start Wednesday wasn’t quite as breezy. José Altuve hit a leadoff single, then Tucker hit a two-run home run. The Astros tacked on another run in the second, but Flaherty, from there, regained control of the game. He changed speeds effectively, his fastball ranging from 88 mph to a season-high 97.2, but his breaking ball wasn’t hitting his spots early.
Flaherty struck out eight in five innings.
“There’s some stuff to work on,” he said, “in terms of just executing certain things in certain spots. The slider is OK. It’s in a good location if it’s on the corner, but it needs to be in a better spot than that.”
Jacob Webb, in his Orioles debut after being picked up off waivers from the Angels, struck out the side in the sixth. Cionel Pérez got through the seventh, but Shintaro Fujinami walked three straight batters with two outs in the eighth before he was replaced by Mike Baumann. The Astros then added four runs on consecutive RBI singles.
The offense couldn’t solve Astros starter Cristian Javier until the fourth, when Austin Hays hit a two-run home run, his first since before the All-Star break. The Orioles didn’t muster any other runs, going 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
Ryan Mountcastle extended his hitting streak to a career-high 11 games with his single in the fourth.
