Henderson And Rutschman Lead Charge As Orioles Win Series Opener Against Athletics
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The Orioles one-two punch of Rutschman and Henderson continues to produce for the Orioles. Today the duo combined for 6 hits in 9 bats. Henderson did more damage with 3 RBIs including a 438 foot moonshot in the top of the second inning scoring both Rutschman and himself.
All runs from both squads were scored between the first and sixth innings. The Orioles came out the gates firing, scoring three runs in the first off a Ryan Mountcastle single and a Cedric Mullens double. The A’s followed that with a run of their own before the Henderson 2-run homerun would add to the Orioles lead. The A’s would once again score a run in the second inning, keeping themselves in reach of catching the Orioles.
The third inning was quiet for both teams, but the Orioles offense would wake up again. It started with an Austin Hays double to left field, followed by an error by A’s first baseman Tyler Soderstrom putting Adam Frazier on first and moving Hays to third base. Jordan Westburg would hit a sacrifice fly to right field, scoring Hays for the first out. Rutschman would hit a single to center field, moving Frazier to third base. Henderson would then ground a ball in between third base and short into left field scoring Frazier making the score 7-2. Rutschman, being aggressive on the basepaths, would go for third base and just make it ahead of the throw from left fielder Tony Kemp. Henderson, also with a heads up play, would move to second base on the throw to third.
In the fifth inning, it was looking like the Orioles’ offense would slow down a bit as after a Ryan O’Hearn single, both Cedric Mullens and Austin Hays struck out. Adam Frazier would turn that idea around very quickly as he ripped a ball down the right field line scoring O’Hearn from second base. Jordan Westbug would then score Frazier on a single into center field making it 9-2. With Westburg’s hit, every Orioles player in the lineup had gotten at least one hit on the night.
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The A’s would score two in the bottom of the fifth before the Orioles would send out Mike Baumann, Cionel Pérez, Jacob Webb and Yennier Cano for an inning each, and altogether they would give up three hits and strike out six A’s batters. The second game of the series will occur on Saturday night at 9:07 PM ET, where Cole Irvin will take the mound for the Orioles, while Ken Waldichuk will take the mound for the A’s. On the season Irvin is 1-3 with a 4.92 ERA while Waldichuk is 2-7 with a 6.07 ERA.
