Orioles’ Bundy cools off red-hot Indians
Baltimore right-hander
keeps Tribe in the park
Associated Press
CLEVELAND
The Indians treated their fans to a postgame fireworks display.
Dylan Bundy barely let them hear a pop.
Bundy kept Cleveland’s lineup in check — and in the ballpark — for 52/3 innings and Jonathan Villar hit a three-run homer as the Baltimore Orioles ended a three-game slide Friday night with a 5-1 win.
Bundy (2-5) cooled off the Indians, who scored a season-high 14 runs in Thursday’s series opener and had scored 23 times in the past two games. The right-hander, who has had a problem giving up home runs, threw mostly breaking pitches while not allowing an earned run and just three hits. He struck out seven and threw a season-high 118 pitches.
“Right from the first inning, I really felt good with my off-speed stuff and I was able to get it over,” he said. “You’re just trying to make your pitches and throw quality strikes.”
Villar connected in the third inning off Jefry Rodriguez (1-3) and Stevie Wilkerson homered in the fifth to help the Orioles win for just the second time in nine games.
Wilkerson added an RBI double in the eighth, and the Orioles racked up a season-high seven extra-base hits — two homers, five doubles.
Bundy improved to 4-1 in six career appearances against Cleveland. The 26-year-old had the Indians off-balance while managing to work around some trouble in the third, fifth and sixth innings.
After the Indians put two runners on with two outs on the sixth, he was replaced by Branden Kline, who retired Leonys Martin on a grounder. Shawn Armstrong and Mychal Given completed the combined three-hitter.
Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde didn’t have his full complement of relievers after a doubleheader in New York on Wednesday and Thursday’s blowout loss.
“Dylan Bundy set the tone with an amazing pitching performance,” Hyde said, “just a quality performance on a night when we were so short in the bullpen.”
Bundy’s been dogged by a nasty habit of giving up home runs the past two seasons. He had allowed 11 coming in after being touched for an AL-high 41 homers last season.
But the Indians didn’t put many good swings together and had a rough night after showing signs of emerging from an April-May slump. They never figured out Bundy, who came in with a 5.31 ERA — just below Baltimore’s MLB-worst 5.66 ERA.
“Coming into the game, his ERA wasn’t good, but he’d been getting left-handers out,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “He continued that trend with a breaking ball, change-up, but he also got our righties out, speeding us up with the fastball and throwing breaking balls to them. He never really let us get comfortable.”
Villar’s fifth homer barely cleared the wall in right, but it went far enough to give the Orioles a 3-1 lead.
Rio Ruiz doubled leading off and Austin Wynns singled before Villar hit a 1-0 pitch from Rodriguez.
UP NEXT
Orioles: LHP John Means (5-3, 2.33) has won his last two starts, allowing.
Indians: RHP Adam Plutko will be recalled from Triple-A Columbus and make his season debut. He was optioned to the minors during training camp in March then placed on the injured list with a forearm strain.