Orioles unravel, waste Dean Kremer's gem in loss to Rays

Jacob Calvin Meyer, The Baltimore Sun on Jul 19, 2025

Published in Baseball

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TAMPA, Fla. — The Baltimore Orioles’ season is slipping away.

Having lost three straight by a combined 26 runs, the team was in dire need of a way out of a slump that had the potential to effectively end the campaign early with the trade deadline less than two weeks away.

Dean Kremer delivered exactly what the Orioles needed Saturday night, and they still couldn’t win the game.

Baltimore’s bullpen, bats and defense all faltered in the late innings against the Tampa Bay Rays, wasting Kremer’s gem in a 4-3 loss, the team’s fourth straight.

The Orioles led 2-0 to begin the seventh inning with Kremer cruising against a Rays team that he’s posted a 1.17 ERA against since 2022 and a 0.95 ERA across three starts in the past month. The right-hander got into trouble and allowed a run but escaped his own jam to keep the Orioles ahead with six outs left to get.

Reliever Seranthony Domínguez could only record one of them in the eighth before allowing the tying run to score on a single by Chandler Simpson. Domínguez then walked two straight batters, forcing interim manager Tony Mansolino to bring in left-hander Gregory Soto to escape the bases-loaded, one-out jam. Soto put his defense in position to do just that, inducing a ground-ball to first base, but Ryan O’Hearn yanked the throw home, allowing two runs to score.

The Orioles scored as many runs in the first inning as they did over their past 27 frames. Jackson Holliday led off the game with a single off Rays right-hander Zack Littell, and Jordan Westburg doubled to put two runners in scoring position for Gunnar Henderson. The star shortstop hit a sacrifice fly to score Holliday, and O’Hearn’s RBI single put the Orioles up 2-0 before the club recorded two outs.

However, the lineup went dormant until the ninth inning against closer Pete Fairbanks, as a double by Tyler O’Neill and Cedric Mullins’ pinch-hit RBI single with two outs brought the go-ahead run to the plate. After Mullins stole second, it appeared as if Holliday hit a go-ahead home run, but Simpson caught the ball on a hop against the center-field wall. The 401-foot flyout would have been a home run in 10 of 30 MLB ballparks, including Camden Yards.

The Orioles have scored only five runs during their four-game skid.

Baltimore is 43-54 and nine games back of the final American League wild-card spot with only 12 games remaining until the July 31 trade deadline. The club would need to win all 12 to enter the deadline above .500.

Time is running out — if it hasn’t already. No team in MLB history has won 43 or fewer of its first 97 games and made the postseason.

Instant analysis

During spring training, then-manager Brandon Hyde spoke highly of Kremer, stating his hope that the right-hander could take the next step in his career. That was met with push back from some fans already frustrated about an underwhelming rotation.

Next step?

Kremer entered his sixth big league season and is almost 30 years old. Is there really potential for growth for a pitcher like that at this stage of his career?

Perhaps he’s proving that there is.

After another awful April with a 7.04 ERA, Kremer has since recorded a 2.98 ERA in 14 starts. He had excellent stretches of success in 2022 and 2023, but the way Kremer is pitching right now might be the best he ever has in the big leagues.

Maybe Kremer is just who he is, and he won’t be anything more. If that’s the case, he will still be a valuable big league starter for a long time. But putting players into neat and tidy buckets is a worthless exercise, and Kremer’s recent performance might be the most recent proof.

On deck

The only bad start of Trevor Rogers’ season came at George M. Steinbrenner Field last month when he allowed three runs in 2 1/3 innings during one of the weirdest starts by an Orioles pitcher this season. Since, Rogers has emerged as perhaps Baltimore’s best starter, and he will get the chance to carry that title into the second half Sunday afternoon when he pitches opposite Rays right-hander Ryan Pepiot.