HEARTBREAKING LOSS

Anthony Santander slam rallies Orioles past Astros 7-5

Anthony Santander slam rallies Orioles past Astros 7-5
Astros fall to the Orioles, 7-5. Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images.

Anthony Santander hit a grand slam off Bryan Abreu in the eighth inning, carrying the Baltimore Orioles to a 7-5 comeback victory over the Houston Astros on Friday night.

Baltimore managed only three hits and trailed 5-2 before rallying to end Houston's nine-game road winning streak. Colton Cowser and Adley Rutschman singled before Abreu (2-2) snagged a comebacker but was late trying to get Cowser leaning off third base, loading the bases.

Santander then ripped a 2-1 fastball over the right-field wall for his 38th home run of the season. It was his second slam this season and the fourth of his career.

Ramón Urías tacked on an RBI triple to cap the five-run outburst.

Craig Kimbrel (6-5) worked the eighth and Seranthony Domínguez got three outs for his fourth save since coming to Baltimore in a July trade with Philadelphia and fifth overall.

Jose Altuve and Jeremy Peña homered for Houston, and starter Hunter Brown pitched six innings of three-hit ball.

But all that was undone when Santander went deep in the eighth, saving Baltimore from what would have been its sixth loss in eight games.

The Astros were 10 games out of first place on June 18. Now they’re securely atop the AL West, but manager Joe Espada knows things can change in a hurry. “It feels good to be in this spot, but we’re not spiking the football,” the manager said. “There’s a lot of baseball left.”

TRAINER'S ROOM

Astros: Yordan Alvarez (.306, 25 HRs, 67 RBIs) was a late scratch with neck stiffness. He was replaced at DH by Alex Bregman, who was initially penciled in at 3B — his first game in the field since Aug. 14. Bregman has been nursing an elbow injury, which caused him to miss five games and could result in a move to 1B in the near future. “It's going to be a fluid situation,” manager Joe Espada said.

Orioles: CF Cedric Mullins left in the fifth inning with left quad tightness. ... 1B Ryan Mountcastle wasn't in the lineup after hurting his wrist while running the bases on Thursday.

UP NEXT

Houston lefty Framber Valdez (13-5, 3.20 ERA) looks to win his sixth straight start Saturday and improve to 9-0 since June 18. Albert Suárez (6-4, 3.18), who's had three straight scoreless outings, starts for Baltimore.

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A lockout appears unavoidable! Photo via: Wiki Commons.

Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995.

“No one’s talking about it, but we all know that they’re going to lock us out for it, and then we’re going to miss time,” New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. “We’re definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league’s obviously not going to like that.”

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one.

Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.

After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami’s $69 million, according to Major League Baseball’s figures. Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million — shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year.

“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”

Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026, and management lockouts have become the norm, which shifts the start of a stoppage to the offseason. During the last negotiations, the sides reached a five-year deal on March 10 after a 99-day lockout, salvaging a 162-game 2022 season.

“A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn’t about growing the game,” union head Tony Clark said Tuesday. “A cap is about franchise values and profits. ... A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. It’s not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion.”

The union’s opposition to a cap has paved the way for record-breaking salaries for star players. Soto’s deal is believed to be the richest in pro sports history, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal with the Dodgers signed a year earlier. By comparison, the biggest guaranteed contract in the NFL is $250 million for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.

Manfred cites that 10% of players earn 72% of salaries.

“I never use the word `salary’ within one of `cap,’” he said. “What I do say to them is in addressing this competitive issue that’s real we should think about whether this system is the perfect system from a players’ perspective.”

A management salary cap proposal could contain a salary floor and a guaranteed percentage of revenue to players. Baseball players have endured nine work stoppages, including a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that fought off a cap proposal.

Agent Scott Boras likens a cap plan to attracting kids to a “gingerbread house.”

“We’ve heard it for 20 years. It’s almost like the childhood fable,” he said. “This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.”

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