Orioles rally but can't complete comeback in 4-3 loss to Nationals in extras

Taylor Lyons, The Baltimore Sun on Jun 27, 2026

Published in Baseball

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BALTIMORE — Saturday was tracking to be another loss in which the Baltimore Orioles were silenced by a left-handed pitcher. Then they got to a righty.

Washington Nationals starter Foster Griffin exited after allowing one run over seven innings. Another southpaw came on and retired Taylor Ward and Gunnar Henderson to begin the eighth before a left-handed reliever entered to face Pete Alonso, who crushed a two-out RBI double. A pinch-hitting Samuel Basallo scored him one batter later with a single up the middle.

But in the end, the result that felt certain for much of the night came to pass. The Nationals scored the automatic runner in the top of the 10th inning, and the Orioles failed to respond in a 4-3 loss. Basallo, up again with a chance to win it and facing another right-hander, grounded out with the bases loaded to complete a winding game.

Griffin’s impressive outing resembled most lefty starters’ lines against these Orioles (39-45), who consistently struggle in such matchups. Baltimore totaled just three hits and struck out nine times against Griffin, a 30-year-old journeyman who spent the past three seasons in Japan.

Alonso and Basallo, the two contractually tied to Baltimore longer than any other Orioles star, came through in the eighth to temporarily flip the game. There was no more magic left by the 10th.

While Griffin cruised, so did Orioles starter Brandon Young, who will remember Saturday as a perplexing start.

On one hand, he collected a career-high eight strikeouts with an unhittable splitter. But it didn’t necessarily lead to one of his best outings. He was hit hard, and none more so than a leadoff home run by Luis García Jr. in the fifth inning that gave the Nationals a lead they held until the eighth.

It was a continuation of Young’s breakout year, but he exited in line for the loss.

A couple of unlucky bounces gave the Nationals (42-42) their first run off Young. Dylan Lile’s fly ball to left field got past Ward, who took an awkward route, and hopped over the fence. Then Jorbit Vivas poked a grounder out of the reach of Blaze Alexander, shifted to the right against the left-handed hitter, to score Lile and put Washington up a run in the second inning.

Young stranded two Nationals in both the third and fourth frames before García’s homer in the fifth, which would have landed on Eutaw Street if not for the roof above a bar that’s still in construction on the flag court.

Otherwise, Young was dominant. He also set a career best with 23 swings-and-misses, nearly double his previous high of 12 whiffs. The right-hander did so with his splitter, which he threw 30 times over five innings of two-run ball. Young’s 24.7% whiff rate is the highest by an Orioles starter since at least 2008, when Statcast began tracking such data.

He gave way to Rico Garcia, who continued his troubling June and sank the Orioles’ hope further. The reliever allowed a run, his third consecutive appearance doing so, to inflate his ERA to 2.67 after he entered the month with it at 0.68.

Keegan Akin, Andrew Kitteredge and Ryan Helsley followed and didn’t allow an earned run over four scoreless innings. When it was the Orioles’ turn to score a runner from second base with no outs, Jackson Holliday grounded out, and Ward’s weak grounder allowed Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams to nab Jeremiah Jackson, who was running on contact, out at home. Henderson’s single and Alonso’s walk were too little, too late.

Earlier Saturday afternoon, president of baseball operations Mike Elias expressed a strong desire to be a buyer at next month’s trade deadline while cautioning that the only thing that will sway his thinking is the team’s play between now and then.

“Everybody in this building is in the mindset of going for it in 2026,” he said.

Elias didn’t offer a win total, place in the standings, or any specifics as to what would need to happen to convince him to operate as such. More losses like Saturday’s will only push him further away from what it’s clear he hopes to be able to do.

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