Orioles complete another winless road trip with 10-3 loss in Cleveland, their 19th straight away from Baltimore

On Independence Day of 1945, the Philadelphia Athletics won the first game of a doubleheader with the St. Louis Browns, ending a 19-game road losing streak. A decade later, the A’s were in Kansas City and the Browns were the Orioles.

Not since that A’s skid 76 years ago had an American League team dropped that many road games in a row before the Orioles fell, 10-3, in Cleveland on Thursday, completing a third straight winless road trip. Baltimore has lost 19 straight road games following John Means’ no-hitter May 5 in Seattle.

Only the Philadelphia A’s, who also lost 22 straight away from home in 1943 and 20 in a row in 1916, have lost more consecutive games as a visitor among AL teams. The former of those streaks entered Thursday tied for the sport’s longest such drought overall, though the Arizona Diamondbacks entered an afternoon matchup with the San Francisco Giants and former Orioles pitcher Kevin Gausman with a chance to stand alone. Arizona, which had lost 13 straight games no matter the location, is the only team with a worse record than Baltimore’s 22-46.

Meanwhile, the Orioles’ pursuit of infamy will get a weeklong reprieve. They return to Baltimore to begin a six-game homestand Friday at Camden Yards, where they are 11-21. Means’ no-hitter represented their 11th road victory in their first 17 such games.

Still, there remains a streak to be snapped, with Thursday’s defeat also representing the Orioles’ eighth straight. They quickly found themselves in a 3-0 hole when Jorge López surrendered two first-inning home runs, though they got a run back when Austin Hays answered with a long solo shot on a hanging slider in the top of the second. Cleveland tacked on a fourth run on another homer in the third, marking the first time López had allowed three as an Oriole.

A Maikel Franco home run and the game’s first manufactured run on Trey Mancini’s RBI single got the Orioles within one in the fourth, but Cleveland scored the game’s final six runs to create the game’s final margin.

López seemingly managed a nine-pitch shutdown frame after the Orioles’ two-run fourth, following a four-pitch walk with a ground ball that Baltimore’s infield was originally ruled to have converted into an inning-ending double play. He had made it to the dugout as the play underwent a replay review, only to have to return to the mound when Yu Chang was ruled safe at first.

After he threw no warmup pitches, López’s first offering to Ernie Clement became a double, scoring Chang.

López gave way to Cole Sulser with one out in the fifth. An inning later, Sulser left two runners in scoring position for Dillon Tate, who promptly allowed both to score on a two-run single by Chang. Against Rule 5 pick Mac Sceroler in the eighth, Chang smacked a two-run home run.