Jack Flaherty's third start with the Baltimore Orioles didn't go as planned, as the San Diego Padres cruised to a blowout victory.
The Baltimore Orioles decided to buy at the trade deadline for the first time in a long time, considering they were rebuilding in past years. Wanting to bring in help for the starting rotation, they acquired Jack Flaherty from the St. Louis Cardinals. Flaherty had a promising first two starts for Baltimore, including against the Houston Astros at Camden Yards for the first time as a member of the Orioles.
After the start, Cardinals fans' eyebrows raised when Flaherty mentioned throwing off the energy at Camden Yards, specifically when mentioning that he had to turn up the volume on his PitchCom, something he said he hasn't done in a home start for a while. Flaherty was praising the Orioles fanbase during this start. Let's not forget that the Cardinals had a rough first half of the season that resulted in the team selling and building for the future at the trade deadline.
This past Tuesday, Flaherty had his third start with the Orioles, this time on the road against the San Diego Padres. Unfortunately for Flaherty, he surrendered seven earned runs on seven hits in three full innings pitched in the 10-3 loss.
Jack Flaherty has a rough third start with the Orioles, blown out by Padres
The first inning was a rough one for Flaherty. After surrendering a leadoff double to Ha-Seong Kim, Flaherty forced a groundout to Fernando Tatis Jr. and a flyout to Juan Soto. However, Flaherty would walk Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, and Jake Cronenworth in succession to put Baltimore at a 1-0 deficit. But in the next at-bat, Flaherty surrendered a grand slam to Gary Sanchez.
In the second inning, Flaherty would give up a two-run double to Machado to increase San Diego's lead to 7-0. After working a 1-2-3 third inning, where he struck out Sanchez and Garrett Cooper, Flaherty was taken out of the game after throwing 84 pitches, 52 of which were strikes.
After the game, Flaherty said that this is a start that he's not going to try to forget, instead looking to build off of.
"I don't believe in flush or forget, I take it," said Flaherty. "It doesn't mean I have to reinvent everything, you just understand what happened and what went on, you make adjustments from there. But it's not always about reinventing the wheel, you've just got to make, sometimes, small adjustments."
Flaherty is next in line to start on Tuesday, Aug. 22 against the Toronto Blue Jays. This just so happens to be the very team that Flaherty faced in his first start as a member of the Orioles, in which he struck out eight batters in six innings pitched in the 6-1 victory.