Orioles lose to Brewers, 1-0, despite a masterpiece by Trevor Rogers

Join the dugout. Sign up here for Orioles updates in your inbox.

There are no more apt words for the situation than what play-by-play broadcaster Kevin Brown said on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network during the sixth inning, so they will be repeated here: At the time, Trevor Rogers was a pair of Oakleys away from a no-hitter.

The Orioles left-hander wound up allowing a hit to begin the seventh inning, so the unfortunate non-error by Rece Hinds in right field at least didn’t prevent Rogers from achieving history. But the fly ball from Joey Ortiz in the second inning that Hinds lost in the sun proved to be a critical blow.

“I just lost it in the sun,” said Hinds, who flummoxed his manager by not having sunglasses on. “Game started shady, and I just didn’t have them.”

“He didn’t have sunglasses at all. And the sun was in right field. Pretty frustrating,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “I mean, it was overcast to start, but it was a 4 o’clock game. I thought he’d have some sunglasses.”

As the sunglasses-less Hinds ran after the ball, Ortiz raced around the bases for a triple. Gary Sánchez dribbled a groundout in the next plate appearance, and it scored Ortiz.

That was it. That was all the Milwaukee Brewers managed in their 1-0 win Saturday against the Orioles. And it was enough because there was no offensive support to back Rogers’ tremendous outing.

With this loss, the Orioles’ already slim playoff chances are hanging on by a thread. Baltimore is four games behind the Chicago White Sox with seven games to play. The Orioles’ tragic number — the combination of Orioles losses and wins from the team they’re chasing — is four. They could be officially eliminated early next week.

For all intents and purposes, this series loss puts an end to all but the most miraculous of postseason runs.

“We’re under the mindset that we’re still in, still have a chance until there’s either an ‘E’ next to our name or we’re in,” Albernaz said. “We still have to go out and compete. But today’s game was particularly frustrating. Some awful bunt attempts and some interesting swing selections in certain places. So, yeah, today was frustrating.”

As Rogers walked off the mound following the eighth inning, the Camden Yards crowd rose to give the 28-year-old a deserved standing ovation. Rogers, a pending free agent, will likely make one more start this season. That will come on the road at Yankee Stadium.

If this was Rogers’ final home start at Camden Yards, it was a masterpiece. He said the idea that this could’ve been his last start at home is “something I don’t even really want to think about.”

He allowed one run on three hits with 10 strikeouts. He retired 14 of his first 15 batters before William Contreras singled to begin the seventh, and Rogers immediately forced a double play to wipe that threat out.

“Just being able to go out there and do my job every five, six days and give the team a chance to win, that’s what I want to be,” Rogers said. “And the fact that I was able to give the guys a chance today was huge.”

The Orioles, meanwhile, had opportunities to back him up. They missed each chance. Baltimore finished 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position, including a two-on, no-out chance in the second and a bases-loaded opportunity in the sixth.

Gunnar Henderson doubled and Hinds walked to set up the second-inning opportunity. Christian Franklin attempted one bunt and fouled it off before ditching the attempt. He grounded into an inning-ending double play. Hinds also missed two bunts before he walked.

And in the sixth left-hander Robert Gasser loaded the bases with one out by hitting one batter and walking two. Christian Encarnacion-Strand, who has been a bright spot since his July promotion, swung at the first pitch from Gasser and grounded into an inning-ending double play.

In the seventh, with Gasser still on the mound, Hinds doubled with one out. Franklin and Samuel Basallo popped up, though, to end that threat. And, after Leody Taveras led off the eighth with a single, a groundout, lineout and strikeout followed.

“Pete [Alonso] and Coby [Mayo] and Rece barreled up some balls and squared them up pretty good,” Albernaz said. “Outside of that, the at-bat quality wasn’t our best by any stretch, and just the ability to, in a close game like that, you have to be able to move the runner, play some team baseball, get some bunts down, see some pitches when the guy is throwing five, six straight balls. The infield pop-ups. Yeah, it was a frustrating day.”

A breakthrough in any of those situations would have been enough to tie the game, if not win it. Instead, Rogers is saddled with a loss in his final start at Camden Yards this season, and the Orioles’ postseason chances are next to nothing.

“We got to control what we can control,” Rogers said. “Let these two games get away from us, but we got to salvage the series tomorrow and do it the next day. It’s all we got left. Control what we can control and give it all we got tomorrow.”

This article has been updated.