DENVER _ The reprieve for the Orioles' top relievers like Mychal Givens and Paul Fry, tasked recently with protecting so many tenuous leads and until recently doing the job quite well, lasted all of one day.
So, too, did the break the Orioles got from having one of those nerve-wracking games.
Givens walked two and allowed a sacrifice fly in the Colorado Rockies' two-run ninth inning, making moot the Orioles' furious comeback from a 5-1 seventh-inning deficit and handing them a crushing 8-7 loss on Sunday at Coors Field that's become more and more familiar of late.
That the bullpen _ mostly Josh Lucas _ held up Saturday in the team's first win in seven tries stood in strong contrast to the struggles of Givens and the rest of the bullpen of late. Givens has taken the loss in four straight outings, but it was far more notable that the Orioles got him into position for the save at all Sunday.
David Hess, who so badly struggled in his previous outing against the New York Yankees that manager Brandon Hyde said changes might happen in the rotation if there were viable alternatives, had no such troubles early Sunday. Pitching with a 1-0 lead after a run-scoring bunt by Austin Wynns, Hess struck out five in four scoreless innings and allowed an unearned run in the fifth before the sixth unraveled him.
A leadoff walk to David Dahl came around to score on Nolan Arenado's fourth home run of the series, and a two-run triple by opposing starting pitcher German Marquez ended a day that began so promisingly for Hess, who allowed five runs (four earned) in 5 2/3 innings.
The Orioles quickly went to work erasing that. Run-scoring singles by Jonathan Villar and Renato Nunez, plus a sacrifice fly by Dwight Smith Jr., got three of those runs back in the seventh before the Orioles kept things going in the eighth. Pinch-hitter Richie Martin doubled and scored on a double by Keon Broxton, Villar walked, and both scored on a go-ahead triple by Trey Mancini.
Partly out of strategy, and partly out of necessity, Hyde used four different to cover the final 3 1/3 innings. Branden Kline stranded both runners he inherited from Shawn Armstrong with strikeouts in the top of the eighth inning. But he allowed a one-out single in the ninth, Fry walked the only batter he faced, and Givens walked the first man he saw before walking in a run with Ian Desmond at the plate and allowing Wolters' sacrifice fly.
