BALTIMORE — Matt Harvey entered Sunday’s fifth inning poised to avoid what would’ve been his first outing in nearly two months that he couldn’t describe using an expletive or the term “unacceptable.”
Instead, the Toronto Blue Jays’ fifth-inning rally left the veteran Orioles right-hander with more of the same in a 7-4 loss in front of a season-high crowd of 14,917 on Father’s Day at Camden Yards. Two home runs from Trey Mancini, giving him 100 in his career, might’ve been enough to overcome a fifth inning in which Harvey allowed four runs after pitching four scoreless frames if not for three more runs scoring on the bullpen’s accord.
Harvey allowed only four hits through those initial frames, having left the bases loaded in the first. But Toronto struck for five knocks in the fifth as Harvey recorded only one out before manager Brandon Hyde summoned Adam Plutko from the Baltimore bullpen.
Harvey has not finished the fifth inning since May 1, a nine-start stretch in which his ERA is 11.49 and the Orioles are 1-8. Sunday’s defeat marked Baltimore’s 10th in 11 games and left the Orioles with a series loss to Toronto despite winning Friday’s opener and leading by three entering the ninth inning of Saturday’s contest.
Including Harvey, the past three pitchers to post an ERA of at least 7.80 in their first 15 starts of the year have been Orioles, with Chris Tillman and Ubaldo Jiménez both doing so in 2017.
Homer happy
Between Cedric Mullins’ second home run of Friday night’s victory and Trey Mancini’s two-run shot in Sunday’s eighth inning, the Orioles scored 14 straight runs via long balls.
In the first, Mancini golfed a full-count changeup just beneath the zone from Toronto left-hander Hyun Jin Ryu out to center field for what was only his second home run in his past 20 games. After his 4-for-4, three-home run day Saturday, Ryan Mountcastle followed Mancini with a single, giving him hits in six straight at-bats.
From that point on, the only hit the Orioles got against Ryu was Freddy Galvis’ second-inning single. They got their fair share of hard contact against him, including a Mancini lineout in the sixth that came off his bat at 113.9 mph, the hardest he has hit a ball this season, according to Statcast.
After getting nothing to do show for that one, Mancini made up for it in the eighth. With Ryu out of the game after throwing 100 pitches, Pedro Severino took Trent Thornton deep to cut into the deficit, and with Pat Valaika on first after getting hit by a pitch, Mancini sent a 1-0 cutter in the middle of the zone out to right-center, giving him a team-high 14 home runs.
Bullpen problems
With Plutko’s 2 ⅔ innings of hitless relief being the exception, six of the final seven Orioles relievers in this series allowed at least one run.
After the unit surrendered the final eight runs in Saturday’s defeat, Baltimore’s bullpen allowed three more Sunday, with two off César Valdez in the eighth in his first outing in a week and another off Dillon Tate in the ninth.
