BALTIMORE—Sunday’s highly anticipated pitching duel between the Orioles’ Corbin Burnes and the Philadelphia Phillies’ Zack Wheeler failed to materialize because of the Orioles’ home-run bats.
The Orioles rocked Wheeler, one of baseball’s best starters, for a career-high four home runs and equaled a career high by allowing eight earned runs in the Orioles’ 8-3 win before another sellout crowd of 44,525 at Camden Yards on Sunday.
The three-game series, all sellouts, drew 133,067.
The Orioles (47-24) won two of three from both Atlanta and Philadelphia (47-24) on the homestand. After their only offday of June on Monday, they will begin a three-game series at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night.
Wheeler (8-4) had allowed just two runs on 10 hits in 20 innings in his previous three starts, but the Orioles homered in the first three innings, and then again in the fifth.
Gunnar Henderson led off with his 22nd home run, his eighth leadoff homer of the season. Colton Cowser hit a 443-foot blast, a two-run home run, in the second, his ninth. It tied Ryan Mountcastle’s June 6th homer in Toronto for the longest of the season for the Orioles.
Adley Rutschman began the third with his 14th homer, and Jordan Westburg hit a three-run home run in the fifth, his 11th. Anthony Santander, who homered twice on Saturday, also had an RBI single in the four-run fifth.
Wheeler allowed eight runs on nine hits in 4 1/3 innings.
Oriole starter Corbin Burnes (8-2) gave up two runs on seven hits in six innings, winning his fourth straight. It was his 10th straight quality start (three or fewer earned runs in six or more innings).
Burnes, who was caught by Rutschman for the first time in six starts, gave up two runs in the fifth inning on Nick Castellanos’ infield out and Alec Bohm’s single.
In the top of the ninth, the Phillies loaded the bases on a walk by Nick Vespi and errors by Westburg at second and Mountcastle at first. Oriole manager Brandon Hyde summoned Yennier Cano, who struck out Edmundo Sosa for his third save.
Notes: Philadelphia manager Rob Thomson was ejected by home plate umpire Mike Estabrook for arguing about a hit-by-pitch call on Phillies catcher Garrett Stubbs in the sixth. … Starting pitcher Dean Kremer, who’s on the 15-day injured list with a strained right triceps, allowed five runs, three unearned, on four hits in 3 2/3 innings for Triple-A Norfolk in the Tides’ 6-1 loss to Memphis. Kremer struck out three and walked one, throwing 59 pitches.