BALTIMORE (AP) — Adley Rutschman homered for the second straight game, Kyle Gibson earned his third victory in as many starts with Baltimore, and the Orioles defeated the Oakland Athletics 5-1 on Monday night.
Ryan Mountcastle and Austin Hays also went deep for Baltimore, which improved to 4-0 in series openers this season.
The long balls coincided with the Orioles debuting a dugout celebration in which each player who homered took a drink from a hose attached to a funnel.
“We want to make sure it’s rebranded a little bit: It’s a homer hose, not a dong bong,” Gibson said. “It’s a homer hose, just like as a kid you go out back and you take a drink from the water hose after you play outside playing Wiffle ball.”
Oakland has lost five in a row and fell to a majors-worst 2-8, matching its worst start since 2010. The A’s have scored one run in their last three games and just 28 on the season.
“We only scored one run,” Oakland manager Mark Kotsay said. “At the end of the day, offensively we didn’t get our job done.”
Mountcastle hit a two-run shot to left-center in the first inning off JP Sears (0-1). Rutschman added a solo shot to left in the third against the left-hander, who allowed three runs and struck out four in five innings.
Rutschman, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 amateur draft, homered in consecutive games for the first time in his career. He went deep Sunday against the New York Yankees and now has three homers this season.
Hays hit a two-out solo shot off reliever Jeurys Familia in the sixth to break out of an 0-for-17 slump and to earn a gulp from the homer hose.
“It was great,” said Hays, who later doubled and scored on Ramón Urías’ RBI single in the eighth. “I got to use it tonight and hopefully I get to use it a lot more.”
After suffering back-to-back 11-0 losses in the last two games of a three-game sweep at Tampa Bay, Oakland ended its scoring drought on Ramón Laureano’s RBI triple in the first.
That was all the A’s mustered against Gibson (3-0), who has won three consecutive starts for the first time since September 2018 for Minnesota. The right-hander needed 30 pitches to escape the first, but had five-pitch innings in the fifth and sixth.
Gibson allowed five hits and a run in 6 1/3 innings. He struck out four.
“That was a true veteran performance there,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said. “He had a tough time finding it. He was missing off the edge a little bit, and then got into a great groove.”
TRAINER’S ROOM
Athletics: Placed OF Seth Brown (strained left oblique) on the 10-day injured list and recalled INF Kevin Smith from Triple-A Las Vegas. Brown was injured Saturday and is hitting .200 with a homer and two RBIs in 30 at-bats.
Orioles: Hyde said RHP Kyle Bradish (bruised right foot) will make a minor league rehabilitation appearance in the next couple of days.
TOSSED
Baltimore CF Cedric Mullins and Hyde were ejected in the seventh inning for arguing with plate umpire Malachi Moore over a called third strike. Mullins was thrown out as he walked back to the dugout before turning around to argue further with Moore. Hyde followed and eventually was ejected for the 10th time in his career.
UP NEXT
Athletics: LHP Kyle Muller (0-0, 2.53 ERA) faces Baltimore for the first time in 15 career appearances. Orioles: RHP Grayson Rodriguez (0-0, 3.60), Baltimore’s top pitching prospect, makes his Camden Yards debut as the four-game series continues.
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