HOUSTON _ The Orioles' May swoon continued in Texas on Friday night with a 2-0 loss to the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park.
The Orioles' fifth straight loss was also their 11th in 14 games. Fifteen of their past 16 games have been decided by two runs or fewer, with 10 of those games being losses.
Astros starter Joe Musgrove (4-4), who entered the night with a 5.63 ERA and was coming off an outing in which he allowed seven runs over three innings, held the Orioles scoreless for seven innings. The Orioles managed just four hits off Musgrove.
Orioles right-hander Kevin Gausman (2-4) pitched his third quality start in his past four outings, the only damage done against him being two solo homers.
Four of the Orioles' seven hits were doubles, all of which came with less than two outs in an inning. But the Orioles (25-21) were a combined 2 for 12 with runners in scoring position after opening the game hitless in their first seven at-bats with runners in scoring position.
The first six hitters in the Orioles' batting order were a combined 2 for 24 with seven strikeouts.
The Orioles had their scoring opportunities late, loading the bases with no outs against right-hander Chris Devenski in the eighth inning, but failed to score a run.
After Hyun Soo Kim opened the inning with a double, Jonathan Schoop reached on an infield single, and J.J. Hardy loaded the bases on a bunt single.
But the Orioles couldn't bring a single runner home with the top of the order up. Seth Smith struck out for the fourth time on the night, Adam Jones hit a fly ball to left that wasn't deep enough to score Kim from third and Manny Machado sent a first-pitch delivery to the warning track in right to end the inning.
The Orioles received one-out doubles in both the third and fourth innings Friday, but couldn't score in either frame against Musgrove.
Schoop just missed a home run on his line drive off the left-center field wall in the third, but Hardy and Smith struck out to end the inning.
In the fourth, Machado doubled down the left-field line with one out, but Chris Davis struck out looking and Mark Trumbo flied out to right.
Machado doubled into left-center field to lead off the seventh, but Musgrove retired the next three hitters to escape that jam.
The Orioles also ran themselves out of a promising inning in the sixth when Hardy reached on an infield single, but was doubled up after Smith struck out, thrown out attempting to steal second.
Gausman limited the Astros to one run in the third inning, the only damage coming on No. 9 hitter Jake Marisnick's solo homer to left. But Gausman paid the price of needing 33 pitches to get through the inning.
Gausman endured three counts of six or more pitches, and the Astros fouled 10 pitches in the frame to get his pitch count up.
Gausman had been dominating relying on his fastball _ and got ahead of Marisnick 0-2 on a three fastballs before the center fielder tattooed a slider an estimated 428 feet onto the train tracks high above the left-field concourse of Minute Maid Park.
An error by Schoop, who dropped the ball on a double-play turn at second base, extended the inning by 13 more pitches.
Gausman relied heavily on the fastball through his first three innings, throwing the pitch 81.67 percent of the time (49 of 60 pitches), and drew the only 11 called strikes and only three swing-and-miss strikes with the fastball.
Gausman controlled his pitch count enough to manage to get into the seventh. He allowed eight hits on the night, but the only other runner to score was Carlos Beltran, who hit a 2-1 fastball into the right-field seats an estimated 400 feet with two outs in the sixth.
