Orioles avoid sweep by beating Rangers, 3-2, behind Kyle Bradish’s strong start and Austin Hays’ two RBIs

In May, the Orioles took on division leaders and division foes. They faced some of baseball’s biggest stars and played in some of its most challenging road venues.

They’ll come out the other side with a winning record for the month, guaranteeing that with Sunday’s 3-2 victory against the Texas Rangers as Baltimore avoided being on the wrong side of a sweep for the first time this season.

“I think everybody knows that we’re legit this year, that last year wasn’t a fluke,” starting pitcher Kyle Bradish said. “We’ve got really good pitchers, really good hitters. Tough month, but being able to win it, that’s huge.”

Bradish, a second-year major leaguer, continued his dominance against teams from the Lone Star State by pitching into the seventh inning, allowing one run to baseball’s best offense. Rangers shortstop Corey Seager’s double off Yennier Cano tied the game in the eighth before Austin Hays’ third hit in front of an announced afternoon crowd of 25,124 drove in the game-winning run in the frame’s bottom half.

The result pushed the Orioles (34-19) back ahead of Texas (33-19) for the majors’ second-best record, trailing only the Tampa Bay Rays (39-16). It also was Baltimore’s 15th triumph of May, with 13 of those coming amid 22 straight games against teams above .500.

“Just proves to ourselves, if we didn’t already know it, that we can play with anybody in this league,” Hays said. “We have a chance to win when we show up to the ballpark, night in and night out, and I think it only builds more confidence going through that part of the schedule and playing well.”

In five career starts against the Rangers and the Houston Astros, Bradish has an 0.60 ERA, limiting them to two earned runs in 30 innings. When not facing American League East opponents, the right-hander is 6-0 with a 2.08 ERA in 16 starts.

He lasted only 1 2/3 innings against the Rangers in his season debut, a line drive to his right foot sending him to the injured list. He went five frames beyond that Sunday, tying his season high of 6 2/3 innings.

Bradish struck out the side in the top of the first before the Orioles supplied him all the offense they would muster with him in the game. Seager lost a pop-up from Cedric Mullins in the sun, and Adley Rutschman and Hays followed with singles, the latter scoring Mullins. After Anthony Santander — who did not appear in Saturday’s game as he nursed what manager Brandon Hyde said was left elbow soreness — walked to load the bases, Ryan Mountcastle hit a sacrifice fly to the warning track in right.

Beginning with Ramón Urías subsequently grounding into a double play, Baltimore’s bats went quiet, going 2-for-21 through the seventh inning.

“I thought our offensive approach in that first inning was outstanding, unbelievable the way we hit the ball the other way and took really good at-bats, and then we just went silent,” Hyde said. “You do that against teams like that, it’s really, really hard to do. They’re eventually going to score and gonna get back in the game more than likely.”

Bradish made his best effort to make the lack of offense irrelevant. A single and walk opened the second, but a ground ball to Mountcastle at first became two outs when he threw to shortstop Jorge Mateo at second before Mateo fired back to Bradish at first base. The pair of outs began a run of 11 straight Rangers retired for Bradish.

Robbie Grossman opened Bradish’s sixth inning with a single, and a batter later, Marcus Semien sent a hanging 0-2 slider to left-center, but rather than a game-tying homer, Camden Yards’ deep left field wall kept the ball in play for an RBI double; Hays also lost a home run to the dimensions in the third, tripling off the wall but getting stranded at third base.

With the tying run at second for Texas, Seager lined out to Mateo, who doubled off Semien to end the sixth. Bradish got the first two outs of the seventh before a single, his fourth hit allowed, ended his afternoon after 85 pitches.

“That is an extremely tough lineup to pitch against, a lot of good really good left-handed hitters in a park which is made for left-handed hitters,” Hyde said. “I thought he did a great job of staying off the barrel and keeping guys off balance.”

Hyde turned to Cano, who allowed a double to put the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position before a strikeout sent the game to the stretch. Back out for the eighth, Cano surrendered a single to Grossman before a pair of groundouts advanced him to third. With the left-handed hitting Seager coming up and left-hander Danny Coulombe warming, Hyde stuck with Cano, with Seager’s double plating a run against the right-hander for the third time in five outings after his first 17 appearances were scoreless. Hyde acknowledged “kicking myself” afterward.

“I had a lot of options there, and it didn’t work out,” Hyde said “I was trusting the guy that has hardly given up a run.

“When things don’t work out, I beat myself up.”

Coulombe recorded the inning’s final out before the Orioles quickly retook the lead. With Mullins and Rutschman again on base for Hays after a walk and a single respectively, Hays grounded a single up the middle to give Baltimore a 3-2 lead, though it was unable to add on despite three chances to do so.

The go-ahead hit left Hays with a .322 average, ranking third in the American League as of Sunday evening. He’s batting .441 in the seventh inning or later.

“We feel like we have a chance to win every game,” Hays said. “We’re never out of it. We know at any point we can chip away and really get a rally going, so it was no different today. We just knew we had a shot the whole game.”

Closer Félix Bautista made that one-run lead hold up, striking out the side in the ninth for his 13th save and completing Baltimore’s difficult stretch. Over the past three-plus weeks, the Orioles won two of their three straight series against teams that led their respective divisions at the time in the Atlanta Braves, the Rays and the Pittsburgh Pirates; split four matchups with the Los Angeles Angels and superstars Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani; went 5-1 on a road trip through hostile AL East venues Toronto and New York; and bounced back from dropping the first two games to a Rangers team that leads the majors in runs scored and run differential.

“We’re both really good teams,” Bradish said, “and I’m sure, hopefully, we see them in October.”

Guardians at Orioles

Monday, 1:05 p.m.

TV: MASN, MLB Network (out of market only)

Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM

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