Dylan Carlson knew the drill. Slap hands with teammates, approach dugout steps and remove batting helmet, receive pirate hat, go directly to hydration station and chug. And it\u2019s much better in a crowd.<\/p>\n
Carlson is on an offensive tear, hitting a three-run homer today after an earlier single and stolen base. And Charlie Morton is on a mission to prove that he can still pitch at age 41.<\/p>\n
It proved to be a nice combination, the power and perseverance.<\/p>\n
The Orioles ran their winning streak to a season-high three games today with a 5-2 victory over the Cardinals before an announced crowd of 21,717 at Camden Yards. Their record improved to 19-34. The vibe also is changing.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no coincidence that the rotation is healing some wounds. Trevor Rogers gave the Orioles 6 1\/3 scoreless innings Saturday in Game 2 of a doubleheader, and Dean Kremer followed yesterday with 5 1\/3. Morton carried a shutout bid into the fifth before Pedro Pag\u00e9s hit a fly ball to left field that drifted into the seats for a two-run homer.<\/p>\n
Morton won his first game with the Orioles in eight decisions by allowing two runs and four hits in a season-high six innings. He surrendered two runs in 9 1\/3 over three relief appearances to earn another chance, and today\u2019s outing featured an uptick in fastball velocity and a sharper curveball, except for the one thrown to Pag\u00e9s in an 0-2 count.<\/p>\n
Six starts for Morton resulted in a 10.22 ERA, 2.068 WHIP and .340 opponents\u2019 average, but he offered quality today. He walked two batters, struck out five and received a nice ovation as he returned to the dugout for the last time at 86 pitches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve kind of seen that out of the \u2018pen the last three, four, five outings,” said interim manager Tony Mansolino. “I don\u2019t know if that looked whole lot different than it has recently. Obviously, a very different look than his previous starts. But we talked about it the other day. I think it\u2019s OK to connect the dots between, you go to the \u2018pen, you get taken out of a lot of pressure situations, you get some time to work on some things and kind of get things fixed to where they need to be, and then they come back and kind of look like their former selves. So I think that\u2019s probably what we saw just now.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a long track record. We were very confident. We knew that we kind of need to take our foot off the gas with him a little bit and give him a chance to kind of fix himself. A guy that\u2019s been that successful for so long, it probably shouldn\u2019t be that big of a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bullpen was nails. No one reached base against Seranthony Dom\u00ednguez, Yennier Cano and F\u00e9lix Bautista, who struck out two and notched his eighth save.<\/p>\n
Morton set the tone and registered his first win since Sept. 4. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was just more trying to find the breaking ball, honestly,” Morton said. “I think, especially the outing in Anaheim, I started feeling it a little bit more. Try to relax my arm a little bit and just some stuff with my lower half, and once I saw that, once I saw hitters kind of respecting the breaking ball, it then buys me time in the zone with my four-seamer. Plus, just throwing strikes with the heater. I think in-zone, my heater was playing pretty well. It has just been a grind staying in every count, right? And staying in every at-bat. So I think when the breaking ball is there, it just changes the dynamic of the at-bat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morton has spent a lot of time in self-reflection, wondering if hurting the team with poor outings meant he should stop trying. Wondering why it was happening, since he didn’t feel finished.<\/p>\n
“I do feel like I established who and what I am in this game,” he said. “I\u2019m 41 years old. I can\u2019t really expect I\u2019m going to go out there and have the best year of my career. I don\u2019t know if I could realistically expect for that to happen. I didn\u2019t expect to come in and have a 10 ERA. With the stuff that was still coming out of my hand, waking up every day and thinking about how bad it was going was kind of surreal. <\/p>\n
“It was like, if I came in and I was throwing 88 miles an hour and I was spinning the breaking ball and my two-seam wasn\u2019t moving and my changeup wasn\u2019t good and I was just done, physically just done, that would be an easier pill to swallow. But knowing that it was still coming out good and knowing that there was probably something going on that I just needed to fix and I couldn\u2019t figure it out. I just slowed it down a little bit. I think trying to gather myself over the rubber a little bit, let my arm work naturally, just kind of backing off just a little bit gave me that feel a little bit again. Hopefully I\u2019m on a better track. <\/p>\n
“But yeah, it\u2019s tough when you go to a new team and a new city and they don\u2019t know you, right? The guys in the clubhouse don\u2019t know me. They haven\u2019t gone through any of it with me. The city hasn\u2019t seen me do it on a stage. They haven\u2019t seen me bounce back. People just don\u2019t know me. And, too, I\u2019m at the end of my career. I didn\u2019t want to go out that way. So, yeah, I made the decision to come back and play because I felt like I could do it and contribute to a team. So to have the performances that I had and to feel the way I felt – after going through an offseason where I put in the work, going through spring training where I did the same, I prepared just like I always do – and to have the game just kind of slap you in the face, gut-punch every single time, it\u2019s tough.”<\/p>\n
Jackson Holliday singled twice in three innings atop the order and drove in Carlson in the third. Carlson led off the inning with a single, swiped second base and advanced on Maverick Handley\u2019s sacrifice bunt.<\/p>\n
Carlson began his Orioles career 1-for-22 but was 3-for-8 with a double and home run in the last two games in Boston. His former team got in his way this afternoon.<\/p>\n
More regular at-bats and innings seem to be fueling Carlson, a third-place finisher in Rookie of the Year voting in the National League in 2021.<\/p>\n
“I think, ultimately, when you\u2019re in this situation, you just try to find ways to impact the game, help the team win,” he said. “Coming up in big situations and the guys in front of me keep doing their job, getting on base, and the team\u2019s playing good ball right now.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s been different, the role, just what you\u2019ve got to be ready for. But that\u2019s the way the game goes. You\u2019ve just got to be ready for opportunities, be ready for moments, and do the best you can in those situations.”<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m really happy for him,” Mansolino said. “He\u2019s looked good. We\u2019ve talked about it a lot. He came out of spring training. He looked good. You guys all saw it. He had a great camp. He goes to Norfolk. That\u2019s tough. When you go to the big leagues for five, six years and go back to Triple-A, there\u2019s some soul searching that happens right there, and then you get back to the big leagues, and you sit for four days and then you might get a pinch-hit against a late-inning reliever, and then we make assumptions that he can\u2019t do it. The reality is he probably just needed an opportunity. Just because of where we are with the roster and the health, he\u2019s gotten a bit of a run here, and he\u2019s definitely taken advantage of it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Doing it against the Cardinals, his original organization, had to heighten the thrill.<\/p>\n
“I mean, I\u2019d be lying if I said ‘no,'” he said with a grin. “I mean, yeah, it feels good. I think ultimately stacking some wins together for us here is nice and feels really good.”<\/p>\n
Carlson was in center field with Cedric Mullins on the bench again for the second time in three games.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust trying to keep the guy fresh,” Mansolino said. “The doubleheaders, the day games, kind of everything going into that. Just trying to make sure that Ced is in a place to help carry us going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryan O\u2019Hearn collected his second of three opposite-field singles leading off the fourth, Heston Kjerstad reached on second baseman Brendan Donovan\u2019s throwing error on an attempted force, and Carlson launched a sinker to center field at 107.6 mph to give the Orioles a 5-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Holliday led off the first inning with a single, Cardinals third baseman Nolan Gorman committed a throwing error on a potential double play ball, and the Orioles went ahead 1-0 after Gunnar Henderson\u2019s fielder\u2019s choice grounder.<\/p>\n
Cardinals starter Erick Fedde allowed one run against the Orioles in 23 2\/3 innings before today, and his 0.38 ERA was fourth-lowest against them in a minimum 20 innings behind Steve Olin (0.00), Harry Dorish (0.32) and Rich Garces (0.32), according to STATS. His defense let him down and he complicated matters.<\/p>\n
Fedde allowed three earned runs and five total with seven hits in five innings.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Hearn raised his average to .340 with a .968 OPS, and the Orioles won consecutive Memorial Day games for the first time since 2013-15. Their home losing streak ended at eight. They’ve strung together three consecutive victories for the first time since the conclusion of the 2024 regular season.<\/p>\n
Music blared in the clubhouse again. Strobe lights blinded anyone who got near them. <\/p>\n
“People in a Major League Baseball clubhouse will tell you momentum is real,” Mansolino said, “and I would be in agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
* The Orioles selected catcher Chadwick Tromp’s contract earlier today but kept Adley Rutschman on the active roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdley was unavailable today,” Mansolino said. “He was going through the process, still, and we just wanted to make sure we had a guy who\u2019s caught in the major leagues recently available.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dylan Carlson knew the drill. Slap hands with teammates, approach dugout steps and remove batting helmet, receive pirate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,47,2538,5,1078,590,4,125,579,578],"class_list":{"0":"post-57352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baltimoreorioles","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-charlie-morton","13":"tag-dylan-carlson","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-orioles","16":"tag-orioles-featured","17":"tag-roch-kubatko"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114577236567419272","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}