Friday, July 23, 2021 07:05 PM (ET)

Pat Valaika homers twice as O’s down Nats, 6-1

Field Level Media
Jul 23, 2021

Pat Valaika hit two solo homers and the Baltimore Orioles defeated the visiting Washington Nationals 6-1 in the opener of a three-game series Friday night.

Valaika, who began the night hitting .188, has three homers in his past two games.

Josh Bell homered and Gerardo Parra had two of Washington's five hits.

The Nationals went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and fell to 2-2 amid a six-game stretch against the last-place teams in the NL and AL East.

Paul Fry (4-3) pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings for the win for Baltimore, which was 1-9 in its previous 10 home games. The O's are now 14-30 at Camden Yards overall.

Orioles starter Jorge Lopez allowed a run on four hits over 4 2/3 innings in Baltimore's first win over Washington in four games this season.

Patrick Corbin (6-9) allowed five runs -- four earned -- on five hits over 5 1/3 innings for Washington. He struck out four and walked one.

Bell gave the Nationals a 1-0 lead in the fourth when he homered off a 1-1 pitch from Lopez, his 15th of the season.

Cedric Mullins led off the bottom of the inning with a double and scored on a double by Austin Hays. Hays moved to third on a groundout and scored on a line-drive single by Ramon Urias.

In the bottom of the fifth, Valaika sent a 1-2 Corbin slider over the wall in left center to make it 3-1.

The Orioles added two more in the sixth. Trey Mancini doubled and moved to third on a groundout. Urias followed with a grounder to short and Mancini was safe at the plate as Trea Turner's throw home was high. Wander Suero replaced Corbin and tried to pick off Urias but his throw was wild. Urias ended up on third and scored on a sacrifice fly by Pedro Severino.

The Nationals put runners on first and second with one out in the seventh, but Cole Sulser struck out Alcides Escobar and Tanner Scott came in and got Turner on a flyout to left.

Valaika struck again with one out in the seventh, homering to center off Suero to push the lead to 6-1.

--Field Level Media

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