BALTIMORE — Jackson Holliday delivered his first big league hit in the seventh inning, then scored the tiebreaking run to help the Baltimore Orioles avoid a sweep with a 6-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday.
“Pretty relieved,” said Holliday, baseball’s top-ranked prospect. “It’s very nice to finally get it out of the way and just kind of enjoy playing baseball now versus trying to fight for a hit.”
Holliday struck out in his first two at-bats and was 0 for 13 with nine Ks since his call-up before he came up with the Orioles down 4-3 in the seventh. With a man on first and no outs, Holliday pulled a 99 mph offering from reliever Abner Uribe (1-1) into right field for a single.
“Someone made a joke that he just had to face someone with 100 I guess,” teammate Colton Cowser said.
Then the rookie infielder flashed his speed, barely making it from first to third on Gunnar Henderson’s RBI single. That was an important extra base, because it enabled Holliday to score and put the Orioles up 5-4 when Adley Rutschman bounced into a double play.
At 20 years, 132 days, Holliday became the youngest Orioles player to produce a hit since Manny Machado (20 years, 85 days) did it in 2012.
“If you go 0-for for three or four games, it’s going to happen in baseball,” Holliday said. “I’d prefer it not to be at the beginning of my career, but it’s going to happen. I’m glad to hopefully learn from it.”
Cowser went deep the following inning for Baltimore’s third solo homer of the day. Holliday stranded two runners that inning with a groundout.
Cedric Mullins and Ryan O’Hearn also homered for Baltimore.
Yennier Cano (2-1) got four outs for the win, although he allowed a solo homer in the seventh by Blake Perkins that put the Brewers up 4-3. Danny Coulombe finished the eighth, and Craig Kimbrel allowed two singles in the ninth but struck out three for his third save.
Baltimore’s Corbin Burnes allowed two earned runs in five innings against his former team. The Brewers traded Burnes to the Orioles in the offseason, and William Contreras greeted him with a leadoff homer in the first.
Milwaukee had tied a franchise record by scoring at least seven runs in six straight games. That included 11 each in two wins in this series. Regression hit hard Sunday, however. Milwaukee went 2 for 17 with runners in scoring position after going 33 for 69 over those previous six games.
The Orioles have gone 96 consecutive regular-season series of at least two decisions without being swept, although they did lose the AL Division Series to Texas last year in three straight games.
The Orioles start a home series against Minnesota on Monday night, with Cole Irvin (0-1) facing Louie Varland (0-2) of the Twins.
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