Orioles' Brandon Young tagged for 10 runs in 11-5 loss to split Astros doubleheader

Matt Weyrich, Baltimore Sun on Apr 30, 2026

Published in Baseball

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BALTIMORE — The argument for the existence of momentum in baseball took a hit on Thursday when the Orioles, fresh off thumping the Astros, 10-3, in the first leg of their doubleheader, received a beating of their own as Houston jumped all over starter Brandon Young for an 11-5 victory.

Young allowed 10 runs, including seven earned, to become just the 12th pitcher in Orioles history and the first since Andrew Cashner in 2018 to allow double-digit runs in a game. The 27-year-old right-hander’s fielders behind him did him no favors, misplaying several balls that had the Orioles lucky to finish the game with only one error.

“It was just one of those days,” Young said. “Got my butt kicked. Not much I can say. It sucks. I thought I turned a page from last year, not having these kind of blow-up outings, but yeah, it’s just disappointing to the team, trying to go for the sweep, and we’re in a 5-0 hole in the first. It’s just really frustrating.”

The Astros got to Young early, grabbing a 5-0 lead in the first behind four singles and a three-run home run by right fielder Cam Smith. Baltimore (15-16) nearly got out of the jam when catcher Samuel Basallo challenged a called ball on a 1-2 pitch to left fielder Dustin Harris with two outs, but the Automatic Ball-Strike system ruled that the ball was 0.3 inches off the plate, and the inning unraveled from there as Young allowed four straight hits.

Things didn’t get much better from there.

Designated hitter Yordan Alvarez took Young deep for a solo home run in the second, and the Astros scored on four consecutive at-bats in the fourth to cut his afternoon short. Young’s ERA ballooned from 2.53 to 6.32 after he entered the contest with two solid starts to open the season.

Both the first and fourth innings could’ve ended sooner had the Orioles made plays in the field.

Jeremiah Jackson whiffed on the tag of a potential double play in the first and missed a ground ball up the middle that was ruled a single. Tyler O’Neill also bobbled a ball hit in front of him later in the frame, missing an opportunity to throw out a runner at home. In the fourth, Jackson recorded a fielding error on a wide throw across the infield by Weston Wilson and O’Neill couldn’t track down a catchable fly ball in right.

“It’s just consistency,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “I think anyone that watched the first game, I would say our defense was pretty good, if not really good. Yeah, the second game was just ugly. Like, that’s unacceptable. I know it’s a doubleheader, it’s tough to win one game in the big leagues, never mind two on the same day. But we didn’t give ourselves a chance to win this game.”

The Orioles’ offense wasn’t completely silenced. Pete Alonso drove in Taylor Ward, who reached on one of his five walks for the afternoon, with an RBI double in the fourth off Astros starter Lance McCullers Jr., and Leody Taveras scored two more with a triple three batters later. Gunnar Henderson tacked on another with an RBI double in the seventh, and a sacrifice fly by Coby Mayo in the ninth pushed the score to its final tally.

With Young out of the game after the fourth, the Orioles’ bullpen was forced to cover the remaining five innings. Cameron Foster pitched the first two, allowing a run on a wild pitch in which he didn’t cover home plate, and Keegan Akin, Tyler Wells and Yennier Cano combined to finish the rest of the contest.

Though the loss forced Baltimore to settle for the doubleheader split, the club still won the series and heads into a four-game series against the New York Yankees with another chance to climb back to .500. The Orioles haven’t yet announced their probable pitchers for the series.

“It’s part of the game,” Jackson said of dropping the second game of the doubleheader after an emphatic win in the first. “There’s a lot that happened. I take a lot of the blame, I guess, in a way. Those errors can’t happen. But it’s kind of part of the game, I guess. Try to move on to the next game.”