BALTIMORE _ Left-hander John Means has been terrific in each of his last three starts, but it only took one swing by Texas Rangers designated hitter Nick Solak to make him a loser on Thursday night.
Means gave up just one hit through six innings, but Solak's two-run homer in the seventh carried the Rangers to a 3-1 victory over the Orioles before an announced crowd of 8,209 at Camden Yards.
The loss didn't change the fact that Means has bounced back from a choppy string of performances in late July and early August during which he lost five of six decision.
He held the Tampa Bay Rays to just a run on five hits over seven innings in his previous start at Oriole Park and also allowed five hits over seven innings on Friday in Kansas City.
With his 6 2/3-inning, four-hit performance on Thursday, he has allowed just five earned runs over his last 20 2/3 innings, but the loss dropped his record to 10-10.
It certainly could have ended differently if the Orioles hitters could have done just a few of the little things to squeeze some run production out of a string of opportunities.
They greeted Rangers starter Kolby Allard with back-to-back singles to open the first inning and came up empty to set the tone for the entire evening.
The O's had runners on base in every inning but the third and had a runner in scoring position with no one out in five of those innings. But a couple of base running mistakes and the inability to move runners up limited them to just a sacrifice fly by Renato Nunez that gave Means a short-lived 1-0 lead in the sixth inning.
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The young left-hander was as efficient has he been at any time during his surprising rookie season, but he blinked in the seventh, allowing a leadoff single to Elvis Andrus and the Solak homer one out later.
When Logan Forsythe followed with a two-out double, manager Brandon Hyde had seen enough. Three Orioles pitchers finished up another game that could have so easily gone the other way.
The Rangers would add an insurance run on an RBI single by Forsythe in the ninth and should have gotten more out of a sloppy inning that featured a walk, two hit batsmen and a throwing error.
The Orioles put the tying runs on base in the ninth inning, but Hanser Alberto flew out to left to end the game.
