Corbin Burnes makes his first scoreless start of the year as the O's beat Detroit (updated)

DETROIT – An Orioles starting lineup that had pitched well of late held on to its ace tonight.

With the team losing six of eight games and not scoring many runs, it was harder to notice the solid rotation performances. But over the last three games, the O's starters had a 1.37 ERA. Over the last seven games, their ERA was 2.57 with five good starts.

Right-hander Corbin Burnes, winner of the 2021 National League Cy Young Award and 2024 All-Star Game starter for the American League, took it up a notch today.

Burnes allowed two singles in seven scoreless innings tonight as the Orioles beat Detroit 4-2, rebounding from their one-hit loss Friday night.

Baltimore improved to 84-65 and moved within two games of first-place New York, which lost today. With the win, the O's remain two games ahead of Kansas City and the first AL wild-card spot.

Burnes had made 29 starts this year, none of which were scoreless. He allowed one run nine times and no earned runs twice, but this was the first start in which he didn't score at all.

Burnes had success, but would this faltering offense help him much?

In yesterday's game, the O's didn't have a baserunner until the eighth inning and didn't have a hit until the ninth inning when there were two outs. Today they had their first baserunner when Gunnar Henderson was walked early in the game. They got their first hit on a one-out single by Ryan O'Hearn in the second inning.

And at the start of the third inning, they did something they hadn't been able to do at all last night: They scored a run.

The Tigers used an opener again tonight, using the same pitcher they used last night, right-hander Beau Brieske. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he was the first Tigers pitcher to start a game on back-to-back days since George Uhle on Aug. 4-5, 1929. So it's been a while.

He managed four outs last night and three tonight, throwing a scoreless first inning despite walking the first two batters. Spencer Torkelson made a nice backhand play against Anthony Santander, converting a 3-6-1 double play, and then Brieske struck out Adley Rutschman in his 23-pitch scoreless inning.

He handed the ball off to right-hander Ty Madden in the second inning. One inning later, the O's took a 1-0 lead.

With two outs, Henderson hit a double to right and smacked a cutter at 108.7 mph. Cedric Mullins hit a single to center to give him a 1-0 lead.

The Orioles, who had scored 6 of 47 runs with runners in scoring position in the last eight games, made it onto the scoreboard this time with RISP.

Burnes, meanwhile, was on a roll, defending his 1-0 lead. He faced one hit over the minimum in the first three innings, striking out 39 pitches, and allowed just one single in the first inning. He pitched three consecutive 1-2-3 innings from the fourth through the sixth innings, striking out 83 pitches for 18 outs.

Burnes had 17 whiffs in the first six innings, one shy of his season high. Overall, he had nine whiffs in 11 swings with his slider and curveball in those innings.

The Orioles then extended their lead by scoring three runs in the seventh inning off reliever Kenta Maeda. He scored Emmanuel Rivera with one out and Rivera advanced to third base on Livan Soto's double to right. A line drive sac fly to left by No. 9 hitter James McCann put the O's up 2-0. Then Henderson hit a two-run shot to right at No. 37 for a 4-0 lead. It was his fourth home run in the last 11 games.

From then on, Burnes and the bullpen took the lead, although things got tricky in the ninth inning.

Burnes is now 14-8 with a 3.06 ERA. He has allowed one walk and struck out seven, throwing 97 pitches with 59 strikes. Over the last four games, he has allowed just four earned runs in 23 innings.

Burnes delivered his ninth career shutout appearance tonight, pitching seven or more innings while allowing two or fewer hits.

Cionel Pérez allowed two hits but no runs in the eighth inning. Seranthony Domínguez allowed a home run to Parker Meadows in the ninth inning, denying the O's their tenth shutout. An RBI single by Spencer Torkelson with two outs made the game 4-2. But Domínguez finished the game, leaving two runners on base to finally end it.

Detroit fell to 76-73 on the year and 21-10 in their last 31 games.

Note from Cano: In his postgame interview, manager Brandon Hyde said that reliever Yennier Cano would not be available tonight.

“Yeah, he's just been sick the last couple of days,” Hyde said. “He's had some minor aches and pains since the last Boston game. We wanted to give him a couple of days off. Hopefully he'll be back tomorrow.”

More quotes after the game:

Hyde, was that Burnes' best game?: “For me, that was it. Everything just worked out. The cutter was excellent on both sides of the plate, great breaking balls, lots of changeups for the left-handers that were at knee height and below, not a lot of hard contact. For me, the best start of the year for him.

“He won us the game by going out and throwing seven zeros. With our offense, we're just starting to score a ton of runs. For him to do what he did (after) last night, we needed two experienced starters who gave us two really good starts.”

Hyde, it was important to finally score some runs: “Gunnar just leans on the ball. Mac does a great job of putting the ball in play with two strikes in a second and third situation after the Soto double. And then Gunnar just gets a pitch to hit and puts an exclamation point on that inning. Anytime we can pull away a little bit in terms of runs, like you saw in the ninth inning, we're better off. That's something we've struggled with this year, and it was a big setback for us at the time.”

Burnes, a critical start for him?: “I think, as I mentioned before, every start is the same for me. It doesn't matter if it's opening day, if it's the end of the year or the postseason, I go out and treat every start the same. I prepare the same and go out and try to make as many throws as I can. We had a great win tonight. It was good baseball. Hopefully we can carry that into tomorrow.”

Burnes, so you didn't put pressure on yourself to achieve great things?: “When you go out there and put pressure on yourself and try to do too much, bad things happen. But I go out there and prepare the same way. I can just take it one shot at a time, and if I can do that repeatedly, it should go pretty well.”

McCann, how big was this win after last night?: “This was a big win for us. It's no secret that the ball didn't move as well as we wanted it to, that things didn't go the way we wanted them to. But one thing is clear in this clubhouse: We've stayed close throughout. We're going to keep fighting together. We know it's a marathon season, we're not going to let one month or two months define us. That's one of the strengths of this team. We're going to keep fighting and do everything we can to get better.”

McCann, how good was Burnes?: “I haven't seen him play this well in a long time. He controlled the ball exceptionally well on both sides of the plate. Everything worked right from the start and the results showed.”