BALTIMORE _ In his first start at Camden Yards this season and his third of the month, Orioles right-hander Gabriel Ynoa served the main purpose a young player has in a meaningless September: provide hope for the future.
In a 3-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night before an announced 14,967 at Camden Yards, the 24-year-old right-hander allowed a run on five hits in eight innings to create the welcome possibility that the Orioles (74-80) might have an internal solution to one of several pending rotation openings for 2018.
While doing so, Ynoa worked around some early trouble that the Orioles could have avoided for him. A shallow fly ball to left field on the game's opening batter got lost in the lights and landed for a cheap double, though Ynoa lucked out when Mallex Smith was then thrown out trying to steal third on ball four that would have given the Rays two on and no outs. Instead, he allowed a single and got out of the inning on the first of two double plays he'd coax.
After a 1-2-3 second inning, Ynoa allowed a leadoff double to second baseman Brad Miller, who scored on a single to right field that resulted in an error on rookie Austin Hays, who bobbled the ball on the pick-up.
From there, Ynoa cruised. Riding a sinker/slider combo that lived low in the zone, he didn't allow another hit until a one-out nubber from shortstop Daniel Robertson. He hit a batter and issued a walk in that span, but was otherwise in control. Most of the contact off him was soft, and he kept the ball on the ground effectively.
The results were reminiscent of Ynoa's debut at Camden Yards as a reliever in early May, when in relief of injured left-hander Wade Miley, he pitched six scoreless innings of relief.
But rarely was that type of success harnessed out of the Triple-A Norfolk rotation, as he pitched to a 5.25 ERA in 21 starts and didn't earn himself many more major league chances.
Ynoa has a 3.18 ERA in three starts this month, and improved to 2-2 after Brad Brach picked up his 18th save of the season with a scoreless ninth inning.
Manager Buck Showalter wasn't even clear if third baseman Manny Machado would play Thursday after missing the previous game with an illness that he hadn't kicked, but he turned out to be the reason the Orioles broke their offensive skid.
Machado homered after a first-inning after a leadoff single by rookie Austin Hays to put the Orioles up 2-0 and break a streak of 26 straight innings without a run. Two batters later, center fielder Adam Jones hit a double off the right-field wall and scored on a single by rookie Trey Mancini.
With his first-inning RBI single, Mancini extended his season-high hitting streak to 11 games, which is one shy of the team high shortstop Tim Beckham set with hits in his first 12 games with the Orioles.
He did, however, contribute to a tense first inning for Ynoa when he lost a leadoff fly ball by Smith in the lights and had it fall for a double. In the other corner outfield spot, Hays was responsible for the run scoring when he committed an error on a single that got under his glove.
Hays ended up with the Orioles' only multi-hit game, his fourth in eight starts. He's batting .290 and likely will see everyday right-field duties the rest of the way.
