Orioles celebrate return home with win over Nationals

Trevor Rogers pitched into the seventh inning and Coby Mayo doubled twice and drove in a run as the Baltimore Orioles returned home and produced a 3-1 victory against the Washington Nationals on Friday night in the opener of a three-game series.

Blaze Alexander knocked in two runs and Taylor Ward provided three hits for the Orioles, who were home for the first time since going 4-5 on a nine-game West Coast trip.

The Nationals have lost four games in a row. No member of the team had more than one hit, though three of the team's five hits were doubles. They were held to one run for the third time this month.

Rogers (5-7) won for the third time since April 1 by working 6 1/3 innings and holding the Nationals to one run on five hits and no walks. He struck out seven.

Tyler Wells, Grant Wolfram and Ryan Helsley, who pitched the ninth with one strikeout for his eighth save, completed the combined five-hitter as Baltimore halted a two-game skid with their first victory at Camden Yards since June 12.

Washington starter Andrew Alvarez (1-1) was pulled after going 4 1/3 innings and charged with two runs on six hits with three walks and five strikeouts.

Alexander drove in two runs with a two-out fourth-inning single after the Orioles were nearly denied despite putting two runners on base before the first out was recorded. Jackson Holliday drew a walk on a full count to load the bases for Alexander.

The Nationals, who didn't have a hit until James Wood led off the fourth with a double, got on the board on Keibert Ruiz's two-out single in the fifth.

Mayo's seventh-inning double off Nationals reliever Brad Lord drove in Ward for Baltimore's third run.

Lord struck out five batters in 2 2/3 innings. Washington pitchers, including Zak Kent working the eighth inning, ended up with 12 strikeouts, but they also combined to issue seven walks.

--Field Level Media