TORONTO — The Baltimore Orioles needed four relievers to get nine outs.

The fourth couldn’t get the final two.

With a two-run lead, Yennier Cano entered with one runner on and one out in the ninth inning and allowed the first four batters he faced to reach base as the Blue Jays tied the game. The fifth, Alejandro Kirk, hit a sacrifice fly to walk it off for Toronto and hand the Orioles a 5-4 loss in front of a sold-out crowd at Rogers Centre.

“Just left some pitches up in the zone right there,” Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “Some balls went through right there, just probably didn’t make the right pitches in the right locations right there and paid the price for it.”

Cano followed left-hander Keegan Akin, who escaped a jam in the eighth inning and allowed a one-out bunt single in the ninth. One of the three runs in the ninth was charged to Akin — who made a throwing error that allowed Daulton Varsho to reach second base on his bunt — while the final two were tabbed to Cano, who surrendered his fifth blown save and seventh loss of the season.

Mansolino said that he pulled Akin, the Orioles’ best reliever remaining after the trade deadline fire sale, for Cano, who has struggled in the ninth throughout his career, because of the lefty-righty matchups. Ernie Clement, the first batter Cano faced, is much better against left-handed pitchers than righties, and Mansolino also didn’t want to “overextend” Akin.

“The matchup right there with Ernie was absolutely the right-handed pitcher,” Mansolino said.

Before the disastrous ninth inning, Tomoyuki Sugano delivered a quality start to put Baltimore in position to win the game.

Sugano’s most recent start before Saturday was his shortest of the season, a result of being removed after a hard ground-ball struck his foot. The same thing nearly happened Saturday.

A 112 mph grounder off the bat of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit Sugano on the left ankle. The 35-year-old right-hander hobbled off the mound, and Albert Suárez began warming up in the bullpen. The Orioles’ relievers, it appeared, would need to cover eight innings the day before a scheduled bullpen game.

Instead, Sugano returned to the mound, struck out the side in the second inning and allowed only one run (a solo homer by Addison Barger in the fifth) across six innings, striking out four without issuing a walk.

“At the time I got hit, it was pretty painful,” Sugano said through team interpreter Yuto Sakurai. “But gradually, it was complying. I got hit last week, too, so I wanted to throw more.”

Mansolino pulled Sugano at only 63 pitches and went to his bullpen with Baltimore up 2-1. Relievers Rico Garcia, Kade Strowd and Akin weren’t nearly as sharp as Sugano, but they got the job done to bridge the game to Cano.

“That was my decision, he was doing great,” Mansolino said. “Tomo, super tough, really impressive, just kind of fighting through. … He gave us what he gave us, he threw the ball great. For me, right there in the seventh inning, you’ve got Vlad leading off the top of the seventh, we’re going for the win right there. Just kind of knowing that lineup, third time through, it’s an important game for us to try to win a game and stay in this series.”

After Garcia’s scoreless seventh inning, Akin relieved Strowd with two runners on and two outs in the eighth. Akin allowed an RBI single to pinch-hitter Kirk and walked Guerrero to load the bases, but the lefty got Isiah Kiner-Falefa to ground out to end the threat.

Baltimore’s bats bounced back after a rough three-hit performance in Friday’s 6-1 loss. Jackson Holliday singled and Dylan Beavers walked to lead off the game against 41-year-old Max Scherzer, and they came around to score on Gunnar Henderson’s double and Tyler O’Neill’s groundout. Samuel Basallo doubled off the left-center field wall on a low-and-away pitch for the second time in as many days to drive in a run, and Coby Mayo provided what should’ve been critical insurance with a solo homer in the ninth.

After entering Toronto as winners of eight of its past nine games, Baltimore (69-79) has lost two straight to open the series against the American League-East leading Blue Jays (86-62), who recorded their MLB-best 45th comeback win.

Postgame analysis

It should be time to stop relitigating Mike Elias’ offseason, but let’s do it one last time.

The Orioles did not properly address their rotation over the winter. That much was clear in April and May when the club got out to such a bad start that resulted in Brandon Hyde’s firing and a trade deadline fire sale.

But the Orioles signed Sugano to be a high-floor, low-ceiling rotation arm, and he provided exactly that. After his quality start Saturday, Sugano has a 4.39 ERA and 1.32 WHIP. Those numbers aren’t outstanding, but they’re solid and much better than what most projection systems predicted.

Sugano has either gone six innings or allowed three earned runs or fewer in all but three of his 28 starts this season. The Orioles paid Sugano $13 million to give the team a chance to win the vast majority of the time he took the ball, and that’s what he’s done.

What they’re saying

Mansolino on moving Beavers up to the No. 2 hole Saturday:

“The at-bats have been so good. I think with young hitters, when you bring to the big leagues, I think you do the best you can to renew pressure. I think once you start moving guys to the top of the order, it does add a little bit of pressure and expectation. For Beav, I think he’s kind of proven to this point, thus far, that he can handle some expectations, and a little bit of pressure might be a good thing for him.”

By the numbers

Beavers walked three times Saturday to become the first player in Orioles history to walk 20 times through 23 career games. Beavers’ career walk rate is a whopping 22.7%. Since his debut Aug. 16, that walk rate ranks first among qualified MLB hitters, narrowly ahead of New York Yankees superstar Aaron Judge.

Beavers isn’t the only Orioles hitter walking at an impressive rate recently. Holliday’s 19% walk rate since Aug. 16 ranks seventh in MLB, behind Beavers, Judge, Nick Kurtz, Gleyber Torres, Juan Soto and Shohei Ohtani.

Only three players on the Orioles’ active roster have more walks this season than Beavers: Henderson, Holliday and Colton Cowser. In only 88 plate appearances (PA), Beavers has as many or more walks than O’Neill (172 PA), Mayo (246 PA), Jordan Westburg (304 PA) and Ryan Mountcastle (324 PA).

On deck

With the Orioles skipping Dean Kremer’s start, the club will operate a bullpen game Sunday. Kremer will rejoin the rotation next week after he exited his most recent outing with minor forearm discomfort. Suárez will start the game opposite Blue Jays right-hander Shane Bieber.

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