Orioles take a 3-2 walk-off win over Braves

“I’m not gonna lie, I was a little nervous going out there,” Fuentes said via Braves team interpreter Franco García. “Obviously, I wanted to do everything I could to help the team win. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the result that we wanted. But just another opportunity for me to learn and to grow and to keep getting better.”

The Braves (61-43) fell to 15-15 in one-run games after winning Friday’s opener 7-6 in 10 innings. The two teams are scheduled to play the rubber match at 1:35 p.m. Sunday.

For the second night in a row, the Braves came to bat down one in the eighth inning. Orioles right-hander Rico Garcia, who served up a game-tying solo home run to Drake Baldwin on Friday, watched his second pitch of the night, a change-up, sail 380 feet over the right-field wall, making it a 2-2 ballgame.

Fuentes (4-1) then threw a 1-2-3 eighth inning on 12 pitches and looked unhittable. His fastball was in the triple digits and only one ball was put in play, a broken-bat soft liner by Leody Taveras to second base.

The Braves then stuck with Fuentes in the ninth. The 21-year-old nearly got the game to extra innings, but his final pitch caught just a little bit too much of the plate.

Saturday’s result did not appear to lessen Fuentes’ belief in his abilities.

“I feel like I’ve won or earned that confidence a little bit just through the work, the body of work that I put in up to this point,” Fuentes said of the Braves trusting him to pitch the bottom of the ninth. “Just going to keep working and keep trying to get better.”

Earlier in the contest, Braves starter Bryce Elder had flirted with disaster through two innings, having walked three of the first nine hitters he faced. Then, with one out in the third, shortstop Jim Jarvis dropped a pop-up that Pete Alonso had hit.

After a strikeout and Taylor Ward single, Jarvis broke left toward second on a line drive hit by Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and when Jarvis tried to reach back across his body to make the snag, the ball went off his glove and trickled into the outfield.

That gave the Orioles a 1-0 lead on an unearned run.

Gunnar Henderson doubled that lead with two outs in the fifth, sending a first-pitch slider from Elder 392 feet into the stands in right field. Elder has now given up at least one home run in eight straight games and in 10 of 12 and 18 total for the season in 20 starts.

Dubón put the Braves on the board in the sixth. His groundout to shortstop, after Matt Olson had walked and Michael Harris II had doubled to right, scored Olson. Dubón now has 46 RBIs this season when batting with runners in scoring position.

Elder went five innings, giving up just four hits. One of the two runs he allowed was unearned, and he fanned eight. But the four walks (matching a season high) and 44 balls pushed his pitch count up to 98.

“A little bit all over the place. Thought my stuff was really good,” Elder said. “Obviously, the walks, I’m not helping the pitch count, just kind of getting behind a bunch.

“So I thought my stuff was really good. We’ll take that as a positive. But a couple of the walks after the double plays just kind of — it’s just exhausting. Like, you feel like you’re rolling, then all of a sudden you’re back down in a hole. Made a mistake there to Henderson there at the end. I’d like to have that one back in that situation. As rocky as it was, I guess, I gave us a chance.”

In his last two starts, Elder has allowed just three earned runs — all on solo home runs — over 11 innings pitched. But the right-hander still has only completed seven innings in just three of 20 starts.

Orioles starter Brandon Young continued his fine season by throwing 6⅓ innings. He left after striking out Austin Riley for a third time, having given up just the one earned run on four hits.