Gerardo Parra: Parra homers, but Orioles lose to the Mets

The Orioles opened a 10-game homestand with a four-game sweep of the Oakland Athletics to snag the second wild card in the American League.

Paced by their ace, flame-throwing, hair-flowing right-hander Jacob deGrom, the Mets beat the Orioles, 5-3, Tuesday night before an announced 34,068, which included a large and vocal Mets contingent. The Orioles’ down-the-stretch schedule just turned ugly – they face only two sub-.500 teams the rest of the year, and the resurgent Mets are Exhibit A.

The Mets are a flawless 8-0 in their last eight games versus the Orioles while the under is 5-0 in the last five meetings between these two teams and 3-1-1 in the last five meetings played in Baltimore.

New York has won their last eight games against Baltimore.

Gerardo Parra went 1-for-4 with a solo home run as the Orioles lost on Tuesday to the Mets. The Mets have also won deGrom’s last six starts.

Making his first appearance at Camden Yards, the 6-foot-4 deGrom extended a run of impressive starts – he’s 9-2 with a 1.44 ERA in 16 outings since May 11.

deGrom will look to pitch the Mets out of a slump here tonight, but Baltimore is playing well right now. Jimenez had a great start to his season, but since the all star break he has an ERA of 7.39. He hit his second of the night with one out in the fifth, just clearing the center field wall and center fielder Adam Jones’ outstretched glove. Third base coach Bobby Dickerson chose to test the arm of rookie left fielder Michael Conforto, and the slow-footed Hardy was thrown out easily at home. He was removed after Manny Machado smacked his 100th pitch down the third base line for a single. For game one against the Mets the Orioles start Kevin Gausman who has allowed 57 hits and 30 earned runs while striking 52 over 60.1 innings for a 2-4 record and a 4.48 ERA.

In the third, Wilmer Flores singled, and with two outs, Daniel Murphy doubled to left. Instead Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop dropped the the relay throw and Flores scored standing up.