Orioles avoid sweep with late rally past Cubs for 3-2 win

Jake Kauderer, The Baltimore Sun on Jul 9, 2026

Published in Baseball

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BALTIMORE — Pete Alonso, on his knees and his jersey decorated in dirt, let out an emphatic roar.

The Orioles’ 245-pound first baseman had just lumbered home as third base coach Buck Britton emphatically sent him on a Jeremiah Jackson pinch-hit double into the gap — the type of play that Britton told The Baltimore Sun makes his heart race. The send worked. Alonso barely beat catcher Miguel Amaya’s tag, giving Baltimore a one-run edge in the eighth inning after a two-run double.

Jackson’s first hit this month, in just his fourth at-bat, proved to be the difference Thursday. The Orioles beat the Cubs, 3-2, to snap a three-game losing streak and avoid dropping to a season-high 10 games below .500 with just three games left until the All-Star break.

The rally came after Chicago took the lead in the eighth inning, in a frame that started with Tyler O’Neill coming up just short on a diving effort.

Baltimore’s right fielder fully laid out in an attempt to catch a quickly falling fly ball off the bat of Pete Crow-Armstrong. But the ball deflected off O’Neill’s glove. Crow-Armstrong, among MLB’s fastest players, raced to second with a leadoff double off reliever Tyler Wells. He scored two batters later on a Seiya Suzuki double.

Suzuki, who homered on Wednesday, drove in both Cubs runs, the first of which came in the sixth inning via a solo home run off Orioles starter Trevor Rogers.

That was all Rogers allowed. The lefty’s strong outing continued his tale of two seasons.

After a dominant 2025 campaign in which he went 9-3 with a 1.81 ERA, Rogers got off to a disastrous start this season. His ERA was 6.17 across five games in April. That number skyrocketed to 10.31 over four games in May. The Orioles went 2-7 in games he pitched during the two months. He was supposed to be their ace in 2026.

But the 28-year-old may be back.

Rogers boasts a 0.74 ERA across his last four starts. The southpaw has stifled three of the league’s top-five scoring offenses over the past month — holding the Dodgers, Nationals and Cubs to a combined two runs over 19 1/3 innings. A win Thursday would have given him four straight victories for the first time in his seven-year MLB career.

That didn’t happen, despite multiple impressive plays from the Orioles’ defense behind Rogers.

With two outs in the fourth inning, Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner roped a double down the left-field line. Baltimore shortstop Gunnar Henderson threw a strike to catcher Samuel Basallo to nail first baseman Michael Busch at home plate and preserve a one-run lead.

In the fifth, center fielder Leody Taveras dove to rob Chicago catcher Miguel Amaya of a hit that may have scored shortstop Dansby Swanson from second base. Crow-Armstrong, who homered twice on Wednesday, then struck out swinging. The All-Star let his frustrations be known, shouting an expletive.

Rogers struck out four batters, using his four-seam fastball 53% of the time, up 9% from his season average.

Baltimore’s offense broke through early against Cubs starter David Peterson — who entered off an outing in which he allowed a career-high 10 runs — to back its southpaw starter, though the unit stagnated with opportunities to expand the lead.

O’Neill opened the scoring in the second inning with his sixth home run of the season. The 398-foot solo blast came after a two-home run performance for the right fielder off the bench on Wednesday. All three long balls were against left-handed pitchers, who O’Neill has surprisingly hit below .200 against in 2026.

But recently, the 31-year-old has continued to look more like the player Baltimore hoped for when it signed him to a 3-year, $49.5 million contract before the 2025 season. After swatting just two home runs across his first 51 games this year, O’Neill has four round-trippers in five games in July.

For much of the game, O’Neill’s shot looked like the only offense Baltimore would generate. That changed in the eighth, when Jackson delivered.

Wins like Thursday have been rare for Baltimore this season, especially at home, where the team hasn’t won a series since late May. More such victories, and in larger bunches, will be necessary to avoid a selloff ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline.