ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — When manager Brandon Hyde walked to the mound with two outs in the seventh inning and no one on base, right-hander Albert Suárez buried his face in his glove.
It had been Suárez’s best outing of his career. He mowed through the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday. But Hyde decided having Suárez face catcher Ben Rortvedt was a matchup he didn’t want, and with Suárez’s pitch count at 94, the Orioles skipper pulled the starting pitcher.
It’s impossible to know how Suárez’s plate appearance against Rortvedt — who owns a .698 on-base-plus-slugging percentage — would’ve gone. What is known is that the decision to pull Suárez immediately cost Baltimore the lead and, by extension, may have directly led to the 2-1 series-ending loss to the Rays.
Suárez, as most competitors are wont to do, said he felt he could have kept pitching. “In my mind,” Suárez said, “I’m always thinking I can keep going.” But he also knows the decision is usually out of his control. “I only control what I can do on the mound,” he continued. “For me, just do what is the best to help the team.”
Hyde felt as though the Orioles were “pushing” Suárez by keeping him in the seventh with an elevated pitch count.
So Hyde turned to left-hander Cionel Pérez, who has pitched in four of the last six games. Pérez allowed two walks among the three batters he faced in Saturday’s win. And, with a bench full of right-handed hitters, the Rays were sure to pinch hit for a better matchup against Pérez.
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Pinch hit they did, and José Caballero doubled. Then Dylan Carlson, another pinch hitter, singled. The game was tied after two batters, and Suárez’s gem was nullified.
Hyde said, even with the risk of Tampa Bay pinch hitting, he felt confident with Pérez on the bump.
“If they pinch hit, it’s two outs with nobody on base and Cionel’s got great stuff,” Hyde said. “Made a poor pitch there to start the inning there with a double, and then a bloop single after that. Cionel is going to continue to pitch in big spots for us.”
The game slipped away in the eighth inning when Baltimore pitched right-hander Craig Kimbrel, its struggling closer. He walked three (one intentionally), allowed four steals and gave up the game-winning sacrifice fly.
The offensive support wasn’t there for any of the Orioles’ pitchers. Anthony Santander hit his 35th homer of the season in the fourth inning against left-hander Jeffrey Springs — matching Ken Singleton for the most in a single season by an Orioles switch hitter — but that was it.
Suárez held his end of the bargain. The bullpen didn’t.
For the all the uncertainty around the Orioles’ rotation — and with three season-ending injuries, it has been endless — Suárez has been an unexpected stabilizer. He deserved better Sunday, too, after pitching the best game of his life.
Almost 3,000 days ago, on June 7, 2016, Suárez pitched a career-high 6 1/3 innings against the Boston Red Sox. In the time between then and Sunday, Suárez pitched around the globe, in Korea and Japan and Venezuela. Back on a major league mound this season, the 34-year-old is proving this is the level at which he belongs.
“Just a great performance by him,” Hyde said. “He put up zeros. He’s just such a pro. With the ’pen kind of the way we were today and going that deep, he gave us a great chance.”
Suárez completed a career-high 6 2/3 innings with just four hits against him. He forced 15 swings and misses, his second most this season, and struck out five while issuing one walk. It was a continuation of Suárez’s strong showing in Toronto, when he filled in for the injured Grayson Rodriguez and supplied five scoreless frames.
But Hyde walked to the mound with two outs and no runners on base to remove Suárez, despite Suárez having retired 13 of the last 14 batters he faced. The decision, at the time, was head-scratching. And it immediately backfired.
So, too, did the usage of Kimbrel in the eighth.
Kimbrel hasn’t earned a save since July 7, and he hasn’t pitched in a save situation since July 25. He has been used sparingly in the weeks since then as the Orioles give him a chance to reset in lower-leverage situations.
Even with three scoreless appearances entering Sunday, Kimbrel admitted his “crispness isn’t there.” And, without pitching in four games, Hyde wondered if there was rust involved. The issues, whatever the cause, showed again when Kimbrel allowed the leadoff batter to reach on a walk and eventually to score.
“The challenge has been pretty apparent, throwing the ball over the plate when needed to,” Kimbrel said. “Consistency. I would say overall, there’s times my stuff has played and gotten me through some things, but all in all, my consistency has just been really terrible, and when you’re inconsistent, you put guys on base and things happen. That’s what happened today.”
For as well as Suárez pitched, he was let down. For as strong as Baltimore has been this season, there are still concerns, particularly with its late-inning relievers. And now, at the end of a three-city road trip, the Orioles and New York Yankees are tied atop the American League East once again.
