Suárez shines on the mound, Rivera leads offense in O’s 5-3 win over Rockies

The weekend got off to a good start with a rock solid win in Denver.

Albert Suárez twirled a seven-inning gem, and the Orioles offense was led by an unlikely name as the Birds beat the Rockies 5-3 in the series opener in Denver on Friday night.

Does everyone remember Emmanuel Rivera? He’s one of the newest members of the organization, a supposed glove-first option added on August 21 to give the infield a little depth in light of recent injuries. It’s OK if you forgot about him since he hasn’t played much, and the Orioles have been on the other side of the country this week. It’s easy to lose the thread a bit.

Anyway, at a time where the Orioles are trying to squeeze offense out of anything they can find, Rivera got his time to shine in this one. The 28-year-old drove in three of the team’s runs and played a perfectly fine first base.

His first RBI came in the second inning. With Colton Cowser at second base after a one-out double, Rivera snuck a ground ball through the middle infield. Cowser was off with the crack of the bat, and sprinted right around third to score standing up. The O’s had themselves an early 1-0 lead.

Later in the game, Rivera provided some crucial power to lift the Orioles from trailing by one to leading by one. Just moments earlier, Eloy Jiménez had sapped some of the good vibes from the inning by being thrown out at third base trying to go corner to corner on a Ramón Urías single into left field. It was frustrating due to a combination of factors—Jiménez is extremely slow, the play was right in front of him, and there were no outs at the time—but Rivera made sure the inning was still worth something. He launched a long fly ball to deep center field, just beyond the fence, scoring himself and Urías to make it 3-2.

In between Rivera’s moments of brilliance was some controversy, which led to Colorado’s lone scoring instance.

Jordan Beck led off the Rockies half of the third inning with a single, stole second base, and moved to third on a Charlie Blackmon ground out. The following batter, Ezequiel Tovar, came to the plate with a goal of driving in Beck. Ultimately he would achieve that…with some help from the fans.

As part of a long at-bat, Tovar fouled off a few pitches. One of those was lofted down the right field line, drifting towards foul territory. O’s right fielder Anthony Santander gave chase, got himself under the ball, and got in position to make the catch and fire home for a potential double play. Only he wouldn’t get that chance because a kid stuck his glove out from the stands and made the catch instead. The play was reviewed for interference, in which case the hitter would be out. But instead the play stood. That kept Tovar at the plate. It was a close call, although it did appear that the fan reached into the field of play. That’s supposed to be a no-no. But apparently the replay review folks in New York felt otherwise. The Orioles don’t have the best history of fan interference calls being left up to officials in the Empire State. But let’s move on.

Eventually, Tovar slashed an offering into the outfield for a run-scoring single. Two more singles drove in Tovar before an inning-ending double play stopped the threat, but not before the Rockies had a 2-1 lead at that point.

That’s all the Rockies would get off of Orioles starter Albert Suárez. The 34-year-old wrapped up his dream August in lovely fashion. The seven innings he threw were a career high, and it was a rather shocking outcome given the way he was getting hit around a bit early on. But from the fourth inning on, Suárez was locked in. He retired 13 of the final 14 batters he faced

It’s rarely an overpowering repertoire from Suárez, but it has been getting the job done. His curveball had a 50% whiff rate in this game, and he avoided both home runs and walks. That is a winning combination for most pitchers, but particularly Suárez. The veteran has run into trouble when he losses the strike zone. That was not a problem tonight.

The fifth inning started promising for the Orioles. Jackson Holliday walked and swiped second base to move into scoring position with no outs. Austin Slater was up next, and he nearly singled into center field, but Brenton Doyle made a nice diving catch instead. While Doyle was sprawled across the outfield grass, Holliday attempted to move up a base. But Doyle wasn’t having it. He bounced up, made a solid throw to third base, and nailed Holliday to kill the threat. It was a good play. It was also extremely frustrating to see an Orioles baserunner make another unnecessary out at third base in this close game.

In the sixth inning the O’s squandered more run-scoring opportunities. Jiménez reached with a one-out double, and then moved to third on a Urías single that fell into shallow centerfield. Cowser followed with a flyout that was not deep enough to score the lead-footed Jiménez, and Rivera was unable to cash in either as he also flew out.

It wasn’t until the ninth inning that the Orioles got to work on some insurance runs. Ryan O’Hearn pinch hit for Rivera and led off with a single, then moved to second on a James McCann ground out. Holliday knocked O’Hearn home with a laser beam triple off the right field wall. And Holliday himself touched home on a Cedric Mullins dribbler in front of the mound that Rockies reliever Angel Chivilli put a little too much mustard on when tossing it home. The throw got past catcher Jacob Stallings, allowing the O’s to score their fifth run.

They would need at least one of those runs because Seranthony Domínguez came on for the save, and had a tiny bit of trouble. The stuff was not sharp. He was in the middle of the plate a lot, and not getting whiffs. The second batter of the inning, Brendan Rodgers, jumped on an elevated slider and deposited it into the left field bleachers for a solo homer. Jake Cave followed with a choppy infield single that Holliday fielded but then airmailed over to first base. You would like the young second baseman to make that play. That brought the tying run to the plate with one out, and then Domínguez finally settled down. He struck out Michael Toglia and got Nolan Jones to ground out to earn his seventh save for the Orioles.

This was a version of the formula works for the Orioles. First, they scored five runs. That is the magic number for most teams, and it’s what these O’s have to do while the pitching gets sorted. As part of that, they hit a home run. Sure, it came from an unlikely source in Rivera, but hitting balls out of the park has led to wins for this team. They need to do it on a nightly basis.

The pitching effort from Suárez was huge. He has been a savior for this team time and time again, and he did it again here. It will be interesting to see how September goes, but this version of Suárez could work in a postseason rotation.

The bullpen was a mixed bag. Cionel Pérez didn’t give any headaches, but Domínguez did. It just doesn’t feel like the Orioles have really learned who their closer for the postseason will be yet. They have four weeks to do so.

Thankfully the two base running mistakes didn’t bite the Orioles. Without those, they might have scored six or seven runs. It didn’t matter here, but it will against better teams. There is a fine line between being aggressive and stupid.

The second game of this weekend set in Denver starts at 8:10 on Saturday. Dean Kremer (6-9, 4.3 ERA) will face 27-year-old righty Ryan Feltner (1-10, 4.95 ERA). It would be nice to win a road series, regardless of the opponent.