HOUSTON — Just last week, the Orioles won a pair of one-run games against the Astros at Camden Yards, earning a series win against the team with the American League's best record. But this week's trip to Houston to face the Astros has progressively become an outright mess.
After losing their first three games in Texas, and five straight overall following a 3-1 defeat to the Astros in front of 20,305 at Minute Maid Park, the Orioles' season has hit a new low.
The Orioles (23-29) are a season-worst six games under .500 and now head into Thursday afternoon's finale hoping to avoid their first four-game series sweep since Sept. 20-23, 2013. And to avoid it, they face the unenviable task of facing back-to-back AL Pitcher of the Month Dallas Keuchel following a short turnaround.
"It's very easy to start beating up on people and I'm certainly not going to," manager Buck Showalter said. "This is a challenging time and this, too, shall pass. But you want it to happen yesterday. Our guys are a very easy target right now for people and I won't be a part of that."
An Orioles offense that has struggled to score runs managed just four hits against Astros rookie right-hander Lance McCullers, who tossed his first complete game as a professional in his fourth career major league start. He pitched 49 minor league starts without a complete game.
Since the second inning of the Orioles' 2-1 loss on Tuesday, they've scored just one run over a span of 16 innings.
"We try to say we're a high-powered offense," said center fielder Adam Jones, who had two of the Orioles' four hits Wednesday. "Right now, we ain't got no ammo."
McCullers, who was chased from the game in the fifth inning in two of his first three major league starts because of high pitch counts, struck out 11 and walked none.
He was helped by a free-swinging Orioles batting order. Following Delmon Young's two-out RBI single in the fourth inning, McCullers retired 15 in a row before Jones singled with two outs in the ninth.
In five of his innings, McCullers (2-0) needed 10 or fewer pitches to retire the side, and 20 of the 31 Orioles hitters saw four pitches or fewer in their at-bats.
Showalter admitted he was not happy with his team's at-bats.
"No, of course not," he said. "Nobody is. Players aren't, I'm not. We didn't sputter down the stretch, we sputtered [all night]. … We have [shaken things up] and we will continue to try to get better. It's a challenging time for everybody, but it will make us stronger in the longer run. We need to figure it out soon."
Orioles right-hander Miguel Gonzalez allowed just four hits over 6 2/3 innings, but three were solo homers, including two blasts from feast-or-famine slugger Chris Carter. Right fielder George Springer added a solo shot in the sixth.
"Miguel was good, he made three mistakes all night," Showalter said. "Not much margin for error and you can say that about a few [recent] nights. I'm the first one to tip my hat to a young pitcher, you can see why they are so excited about him. It's just we have figured out a way to beat those guys in the past and that's something we have to do a better job with."
The Orioles' only run was scored on Young's opposite-field RBI single in the fourth, one of the few Orioles at-bats that stood out on the night. Jones hit a one-out triple to left field to set up that run. Young drove him in two batters later by lining an outside pitch just inside the right-field line.
Carter gave the Astros a 1-0 lead in the second inning when he crushed a full-count fastball from Gonzalez to left. Gonzalez retired the next eight Houston batters before Carter stepped to the plate again, this time sending a 2-0 fastball 441 feet to left-center field. Springer added another solo shot, lining a 2-2 slider just over the high left-field fence in the sixth.
"I take one pitch from the whole game and it was a slider to Springer, the one I threw to him," Gonzalez said. "We did some other things, we played some defense, the rest is not going our way right now but things are going to change."
It marked a second straight night that the team's offense faded down the stretch. The Orioles had one hit in the final five innings. They had one hit in the final seven innings Tuesday night.
"We have been struggling the last couple days, but we're trying to play the game as hard as we know," Jones said. "I think the thing we need to get back to is the efficiency. Over the last three years as a team, we've had a really high efficiency on offense and defense. We've just got to get back to that. When we get into situations to get runners in, we've got to get them in. When we have opportunities to turn the double play or get extra outs, we've got to do that."
With McCullers one out from a complete game, Jones' two-out single in the ninth prompted a mound visit from Astros manager A.J. Hinch, who kept McCullers in the game. The rookie rewarded that faith, ending a complete-game effort by striking out Chris Davis on his 107th pitch of the night.
"We go through stretches," Jones said. "We have … about 110, 120 games left in the season. It's not over. We've got a long way to go. It's not a sprint and the guys in here know it's a marathon, so get back on the saddle tomorrow morning, get a good night's sleep and be aggressive against Keuchel tomorrow."
twitter.com/EddieInTheYard