They throw to the wrong base. They give away outs. They’ve allowed the most runs in the American League. But thanks to an eighth-inning home run by Maikel Franco, the Orioles haven’t been no-hit.
Franco, who stayed alive with two strikes and two outs when a breaking ball a few inches in the strike zone was called a ball, launched the Orioles’ first hit of the game into their bullpen to spare their blushes in a 10-2 loss to the Houston Astros before 7,414 fans at Camden Yards that had a chance to be the wrong kind of memorable but instead goes into the overflowing bucket of lopsided losses.