Baltimore Orioles Alex Cobb Better in Second Post-IL Outing

The Baltimore Orioles ended Friday night with a 2-1 loss, their 18th one-run game of the season.

Unfortunately, this Baltimore Orioles have come out on the losing end of 12 of the one-run games.

Despite the loss, the Orioles can walk away with their heads held high as Alex Cobb returned to his pre-IL form. In six innings of work, he gave up four hits and two runs. He struck out five and walked three.

Before Friday night’s game, he had only gone six innings one other time: August 17 when he threw 88 pitches against the Blue Jays in a 2-7 loss. Cobb’s 91 pitches against the Rays was a season high. The Friday night outing against the Rays proved that he is back and that the Orioles can rely on him to toe the rubber once every five days.

Unfortunately for Cobb, Austin Hays home run just wasn’t enough. Hays hit his second home run of the season. His first was on August 11, a few days before he went on the IL. That home run was in an in-the-park home run in the 10th inning, that scored Andrew Velazquez who was on second due to the 2020 extra-inning procedures.

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So, this was Hay’s first out-of-the-park home run. Unfortunately, it was the only run scored by the Orioles.

Tyler Glasnow started for the Rays, and he held the Orioles to four hits. The fifth hit of the night was against Oliver Drake. And, that was it. In the final three innings, the Rays bullpen dominated, striking out four and facing the minimum.

The Orioles and Rays play against on Saturday night. Jorge Lopez gets another chance to prove that he is worthy of a 2021 contract by facing off against Charlie Morton. Both have ERAs over 5.00. Morton has a 1-2 record to Lopez’s 2-0.

Other than Jose Iglesias, the Orioles have had some struggles with Morton in the past, with no home runs from the active roster. But, the active roster is rather young with little history against any veteran pitcher. Morton is just in his fourth start of the IL. The first pitch is at 7:35 ET at Camden Yards.