BALTIMORE _ Before Tuesday night's game at Camden Yards, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde reiterated there will be more games like Monday's for this rebuilding team, as a competitive contest fizzled into a blowout defeat with a catcher on the pitcher's mound. There's hope, then, that this season will occasionally include nights like Tuesday's.
The ball continued to fly out of Oriole Park on Tuesday night, but unlike the previous 11 games here, the home team provided the power, with the Orioles blasting four home runs in their 9-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox. They backed Andrew Cashner's seven one-run innings with mostly spectacular defense; right fielder Trey Mancini ended the first and third innings with leaping catches heading backward, and in the opposite corner, Dwight Smith Jr. jumped at the wall to deny Chicago's Adam Engel of a two-run home run in the second.
For what Smith took from the White Sox, he gave more to the Orioles, hitting a three-run shot in the fifth off Chicago right-hander Ivan Nova. Smith, back in the lineup for the first time after exiting Sunday's game with right quad tightness, has five home runs in 2019 after entering the campaign with two for his career.
He was not alone in displaying his power. Renato Nunez homered for the fourth time this homestand with his solo shot in the third, a ball that left his bat at 111 mph and went a projected 421 feet, per Statcast data. Three batters later, Chris Davis hit his first Camden Yards home run of 2019, sending an elevated fastball out to left-center field. Combined with a second-inning single that scored Joey Rickard with the aid of a wild throw from Engel in center that sailed into the Chicago dugout, Davis improved to 9 for 23 since ending his record hitless streak, though he was retired his final two at-bats.
The Orioles tagged Nova with nine runs when Rickard rocketed a fastball out to left field to score two more with his second home run of the year. Nova allowed 14 base runners, 11 via hits, in his four innings, and although the Orioles recorded no hits against Chicago's relievers, their comfortable lead minimized such a qualm.
Tim Anderson's RBI single after a triple by Yoan Moncada led to the only White Sox run, but it did little to dull a night of needed reprieve for an Orioles team that went 1-10 in its first 11 home games while getting outscored 102-50 in those contests.
Many of those opposing runs have come via home runs, but the Orioles permitted none for the second time in three games after seeing at least one opponent hit one out in 21 of their first 22 games. They enter the final week of April with nine more home runs allowed than any other team in major league history has forfeited before May 1.
But they treated an announced crowd 8,953 to a comfortable victory, which have been rare for a team that is 5-15 since beginning the season 4-1, and treated themselves to a night in which a young bullpen wasn't tasked with keeping a deficit narrow. Instead, Paul Fry continued his strong sophomore season with a clean eighth before Gabriel Ynoa finished off the victory in the ninth.
The Orioles head into Wednesday's finale looking for their first home series victory this season. It's unlikely they so quickly enjoy another night like Tuesday, one in which development and success were perfectly in-sync, but it's good to know they can happen on occasion.
