DETRIOT _ Orioles manager Brandon Hyde has praised his team's resilience throughout a 2019 season that Saturday reached 100 losses. The 100th was one of the toughest, with two late leads disappearing and the final blow delivered on the Detroit Tigers' walk-off grand slam. But Sunday, even the rain falling over Comerica Park couldn't dampen Baltimore's ability to respond.
In a game that included a 39-minute rain delay in the sixth inning, the Orioles beat the Tigers, 8-2, leaving one game remaining in this series between the teams with the two worst records in major league baseball.
Thanks to victories in two of the series' first three games, the Orioles (49-100) lead the Tigers by 4{ games with 13 games left, poised to avoid what would be a second straight season holding the majors' worst mark. Such notions could have again floated through their minds Saturday night, after they were one out from winning in the ninth and two outs from winning in the 12th only to lose by four.
They trailed again three batters into the bottom of the first Sunday, with the Tigers (44-104) scoring off Asher Wojciechowski with a single by Harold Castro and double by Jordy Mercer. But the Orioles answered with three singles from the first four batters they sent to the plate against old friend Edwin Jackson in the second.
The Tigers went back ahead by opening the bottom half with three straight hits off Wojciechowski, who was pitching on two days of extra rest after the Orioles felt he needed a slight break after his previous start. But that second-inning run was the last he allowed as the Orioles rallied.
Baltimore struck for three runs in the top of the third, all coming with two outs. Dwight Smith Jr. tripled and scored on Hanser Alberto's bunt single to the left side to tie the game. Rio Ruiz, who was positioned to be Saturday's hero after a go-ahead single in the top of the 12th, followed with another tiebreaking hit, this time a two-run home run.
Stationed to a lead, Wojciechowski settled in. He retired eight of the final nine he faced, with the Orioles adding two more runs in the sixth on a single by Jonathan Villar, and was due to pitch the bottom of the sixth when umpires stopped the game because of rain.
The delay ended Wojciechowski's afternoon after 84 pitches. With Hyde striving to avoid relievers who pitched in the first two games of the series, Evan Phillips, Tanner Scott, Dillon Tate and Tayler Scott followed the rain with four scoreless innings.
Orioles outfielder Anthony Santander ended an 0-for-27 skid with a two-run single in the eighth.
