WASHINGTON _ On the eve of the longest day of the summer, the Orioles endured one of the longest nights they'll face all season, a 3-0 win over the host Washington Nationals interrupted by a two-hour, 43-minute rain delay.
Mark Trumbo's two-run home run, his fifth of the year, came after a rare bunt hit from Jonathan Schoop early in the second inning. It ultimately decided the game long before it was completed, let alone resumed.
It proved to be the only swing that mattered for a 21-51 Orioles team that rapped out eight hits _ including four for extra-bases and two by the hot-hitting Adam Jones _ and allowed just five.
The first four innings belong to Andrew Cashner, who returned from the disabled list with four three-hit shutout innings. The Nationals threatened him only in the first inning, when teenage phenom Juan Soto doubled and went to third on a single by Anthony Rendon, but Trumbo started a double play at first base to end the inning.
On the slide at second base, Rendon's flailing arms caught Orioles shortstop Manny Machado right in the face with an elbow _ providing the most tense moment of the game for the Orioles as they waited for him to get up from the infield dirt.
Were it not for the delay, which at 2:43 lasted longer than 15 Orioles games did this season, it would have been one of the simplest games they've had in this complicated season.
The only complicating factor was the delay, which forced Cashner from the game, but not before he hit for himself in the fifth inning to save a bench player.
And then there was the matter of Brad Brach putting the go-ahead run on base with two outs in the ninth inning.
But in between, Miguel Castro began what would be five scoreless innings of Orioles relief with two shutout innings before Darren O'Day pitched a scoreless seventh, Zach Britton fanned two in the eighth before retiring the first batter of the ninth and passing it off to Brach.
He allowed two singles and issued a walk, but struck out former Oriole Mark Reynolds with the bases loaded, securing the team's 10th road win of the season against 28 losses and ending the Nationals' six-game winning streak in the regional rivalry.
