Machado Crushed A Curveball, Ends Orioles Losing Streak
LOS ANGELES -- The Baltimore Orioles earned their first-ever regular-season win at Dodger Stadium thanks to something they lacked in the first seven games of their nine-game West Coast road trip: a strong performance by a starting pitcher.
Chris Tillman gave up one run over seven innings, Manny Machado hit a decisive three-run homer, and the Orioles beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1 Tuesday at Dodger Stadium.
First-place Baltimore, which leads the second-place Toronto Blue Jays by 2 1/2 games in the American League East, snapped a five-game losing streak.
Tillman won his fifth consecutive interleague game dating back to July 7, 2014, and the Orioles are 8-0 in his past eight interleague starts. The right-hander surrendered five hits and two walks, and he struck out two while throwing 100 pitches.
Tillman bounced back from losing Thursday at Seattle, his first defeat since April.
Baltimore reliever Brad Brach struck out the side in the eighth inning, and fellow All-Star Zach Britton got the last three outs for his league-leading 24th save.
Although Tillman extended his record to 11-2, he expressed no disappointment in not being named to the All-Star Game on Tuesday. Five Orioles will be in San Diego next week, but Tillman will not be one of them.
"We have a lot of talented players in our room," Tillman said. "It's no big deal, I'm happy for the guys who made it."
The loss snapped Los Angeles' five-game winning streak, but the Dodgers maintain a 1 1/2-game lead over the New York Mets for the first National League wild-card spot and remain five games behind the NL West-leading San Francisco Giants.
Kenta Maeda (7-6) lasted only four-plus innings for Los Angeles, surrendering seven hits and four runs.
"Maeda made one mistake to a really good hitter," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the Machado homer. "We'll go back out there tomorrow afternoon and try to win the series."
Despite the loss, the Dodgers' locker room was upbeat as their recent success at home has placed them into postseason contention.
"Ken left a curveball up, and that was that," catcher Yasmani Grandal said. "He battled through four innings, and other that that pitch, he made tough pitches when he had to."
The loss snapped a 10-game home winning streak for Los Angeles. The streak was the Dodgers' longest since a 13-game, season-opening run from April 13-May 6, 2009.
The Orioles took a 4-1 lead in the fifth inning on Machado's 19th homer of the season. He crushed a 2-2 curveball from Maeda deep into the left field pavilion after a leadoff single by Adam Jones and a walk to Hyun Soo Kim. The homer traveled an estimated 453 feet.
Pedro Baez replaced Maeda immediately after the homer.
Baltimore evened the score at 1 in the second when Jonathan Scoop hit into an unusual fielder's choice to score Mark Trumbo, who led off with a walk and advanced to third on a single by Matt Wieters. Schoop looped a fastball into right field, and with Wieters holding to see if the ball would drop, right fielder Yasiel Puig grabbed the ball on one hop and fired to nail Wieters at second base.
The Dodgers took a 1-0 in the first inning on Adrian Gonzalez's RBI single on the first pitch he saw from Tillman. Gonzalez served a fastball to left field that scored Corey Seager, who had reached on a double.
Tillman got out of further trouble by getting Grandal to fly out to the end the inning.
Seager extended his hitting streak to 18 games with the double, tying Bill Sudakis (July-August 1969) for the second-longest rookie hitting streak in franchise history. Tommy Davis' 20-game streak in 1960 is the franchise mark.
