Young Was Nearly Perfect In Houston
Pitching in front of his parents, other family members and quite a few friends, Baltimore’s Brandon Young (1-6), who is from Lumberton, Texas, pitched the game of his early career on Friday night. Young was perfect through 7.2 innings; twenty-three up and twenty-three down. The twenty-fourth batter Young faced was, ironically enough, former Oriole Ramon Urias. Urias hit a soft groundball to the third base side of the mound that was fielded by Young. Young turned to his left and threw to first but the throw went wide right and got past Coby Mayo, allowing Urias to reach second base. The play was scored an infield hit and an error on Young (throwing) and ended the potential perfect game. The inning and Young’s night ended after Taylor Trammell struck out swinging, Young’s sixth strikeout of the night.
In the end, the Baltimore Orioles and Young defeated the Houston Astros (68-54) 7-0. Young earned his first win of the 2025 season with a 93 pitch (61 K’s) effort; Baltimore has now won three games in a row.
Young was at a loss for words after the game, saying this about his night, “I mean, just growing up here, coming to games here, having family and friends here – it’s hard to put into words, honestly.”
Offensive support
Mayo got the Orioles’ scoring started with a fourth inning solo homerun to left, his fifth of the season.
Back-to-back one out singles, a walk, a sactifice fly by Gunnar Henderson and an Astros throwing error produced two more runs in the fifth inning. Henderson also hit a RBI single in the seventh.
Baltimore scored three more runs in the eighth on a Ryan Mountcastle lead-off double, a Jeremiah Jackson RBI single and a Dylan Carlson two-run homerun. The way Young was dealing made the runs icing on the cake.
Jordan Westburg, Mountcastle, Jackson and Carlson each had a multi-hit game.
Slightly overlooked by the Young near perfecto was the clean, one strike out relief effort by Yaramil Hiraldo in the ninth inning.
Eighth inning drama
The eighth inning was not without extra drama. After Young threw a second strike to Houston’s lead-off hitter and former Oriole farmhand Christian Walker, Houston hitting coach Troy Snitker was ejected by homeplate umpire Chad Fairchild, causing a slight delay while manager Joe Espada and Fairchild discussed it.
Following Walker’s strikeout, Yainer Diaz hit a long fly ball to the fence in right center. Greg Allen and Daniel Johnson, who apparently could not hear each other calling for the ball, had a slight collision befor Johnson caught the ball for the second out of the inning.
As an interesting aside, Urias made the final out in the John Means no-hitter in Seattle on May 5th, 2021.
2025 Record: 56-66
Next Game: Sat. 8/16 @ 7:10 pm vs. Astros in Houston