Orioles beat White Sox, 2-1, as Zach Eflin deals and small ball does just enough

BALTIMORE — Zach Eflin didn’t look like himself his past two starts.

The Orioles’ right-hander was solid in his return from the injured list May 11 but proceeded to give up 12 combined earned runs over his next two outings, allowing a lot of hard contact and seven home runs. A soft assignment in the Chicago White Sox on Friday provided a chance to bounce back and he took advantage, pitching seven shutout innings to lead a 2-1 victory.

“I think, for the most part, command,” Eflin said of what was working for him. “Being able to get ahead of guys and I had a pretty good sinker today, so was able to get some soft contact early in the count and kind of get through four or five pretty efficiently. I thought [catcher Adley Rutschman] called a great game. Really just following his lead the whole time and doing my best to execute pitches and defense played a huge part.”

Eflin mowed through a Chicago lineup whose lone hitter with an OPS over .800, designated hitter Mike Tauchman, was playing just his 10th game of the season. The 31-year-old sat down the first seven White Sox batters of the day and faced the minimum, with the help of a double play, through five innings before giving up consecutive singles to open the top of the sixth.

He worked out of that jam and, after the Orioles (20-36) took the lead in the bottom half of the frame, got through another in the seventh to join Dean Kremer as the team’s only starters to complete seven scoreless in a game this season. Eflin finished with six strikeouts while allowing four hits and a walk.

“His sinker was really good today,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “It seems like all of his misses were kind of below the zone in the right spots. I think that’s probably the biggest thing is I watched the misses a little bit, watched a couple innings as it went on on the iPad. It looks like the misses were in a good spot. Obviously, when the misses are up middle, it doesn’t go so well. It didn’t look that way today.”

It took a while, but the Orioles’ offense broke through in the sixth with some small ball and a double steal by their two primary first basemen. Rutschman singled and Gunnar Henderson doubled — his 400th career hit — to lead off the inning and Ryan Mountcastle reached on an infield single shortstop Chase Meidroth couldn’t handle to load the bases.

After Ryan O’Hearn grounded into a force out at home, Ramón Urías came through with a deep fly ball to right field that scored Henderson from third. With O’Hearn at first and Mountcastle at third, the Orioles signaled for O’Hearn to fake the steal of second and draw a throw from catcher Edgar Quero, only for Mountcastle to break for home and slide in safely. It was Mountcastle’s first stolen base of the season and O’Hearn’s third.

“I feel like usually if it’s a steal-and-stop situation like that with the guy on third, usually they just fake the throw or they throw to third or something and then you just casually go to second and it’s no big deal,” O’Hearn said. “But when it works out like that, that’s awesome. Great call by Manso to get us that extra run there.”

Mountcastle played another inning in the field but left the game with right hamstring discomfort after the seventh. Outfielder Cooper Hummel, making his Orioles debut, replaced him in the lineup and pushed O’Hearn from right field to first.

Bryan Baker pitched a scoreless eighth in relief of Eflin to set up a save situation for closer Félix Bautista. He allowed a run on a pair of doubles by Tauchman and left fielder Andrew Benintendi before walking center fielder Luis Robert Jr. to put the game in danger of slipping away, but he struck out right fielder Joshua Palacios to end it and secure his ninth save of the season.

Postgame analysis

It might be too soon to say the Orioles have a Bautista problem, but he’s endured several adventurous outings of late.

After going through a rough stretch that included blowing his first save of the year while pitching back-to-back games for the first time since returning from Tommy John elbow surgery, Bautista posted a pair of scoreless outings before his struggles returned Friday. Though he pulled out the save, both doubles he allowed had exit velocities over 100 mph, and he issued his sixth walk in as many outings.

Bautista isn’t throwing with the triple-digit velocity that was his trademark when he was one of the best closers in the sport two years ago, maxing out around 98 mph with his sinker. He’s still managed to pile up the strikeouts at a rate high enough to justify his ninth-inning role and there’s plenty of reason to believe he can rediscover that velocity the further removed he becomes from his surgery.

Until then, the Orioles will have to hope he can shake off these recent results and find a way to be just as effective without it.

What they’re saying

Mansolino on Bautista’s up-and-down past few outings:

“He’s been a little inconsistent here lately. I think that’s fair to say. I want to say his previous outing he came in, it was pretty lights-out, and you feel like he’s picking up some momentum when he has those types of outings. And then he has the one today which, listen, you’ve got to give some guys credit, too. That could have gone south real quick, especially with how things have gone, and he hung in there, he battled, he got the big out when we needed it and here we are with the win.”

By the numbers

Henderson, who went 2 for 4 Friday, became the sixth player in Orioles history to record 400 hits before turning 24 years old. The first five were Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken Jr. and Manny Machado — Orioles royalty.

On deck

The Orioles will give Kremer the ball on Saturday as they go for their fourth series victory of the season. Chicago plans to start right-hander Davis Martin, who has been a rare bright spot sporting a 3.45 ERA over 11 appearances (10 starts).