Dean Kremer’s arrival six seasons ago signaled the beginning of the Orioles’ rebuild. His performance Thursday night helped deliver the club’s biggest win since.
Behind the calm Kremer, the Orioles defeated the Boston Red Sox, 2-0, to win their 100th game of the season and clinch the franchise’s first American League East title . In the most important start of his life, Kremer pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings, needing only Anthony Santander’s solo home run in the first and a steady bullpen behind him for the victory.
As the tight game neared an end, the 27,543 fans at Camden Yards, who earlier in the night learned of the to remain at the park for 30 years, grew progressively more animated. When Tyler Wells recorded the final out, they made the park shake in a way it rarely has the past six seasons.
The last time the Orioles won 100 games was in 1980. The division title is just their third in the past 40 seasons. Baltimore will enter the postseason as the AL’s top team, earning a bye in the wild-card round and home-field advantage through at least the AL Championship Series.
“Nobody was giving us a chance to win,” manager Brandon Hyde said in an AL East champion . “It was in every publication everywhere that we were going to regress, and I wanted our guys to know that. They took it personal, and we just won 100 in the AL East.”
The monumental win — and Kremer’s hand in it — serves as a full-circle moment for the Orioles and the right-hander.
In July 2018, Baltimore traded superstar Manny Machado to the Los Angeles Dodgers for a haul of prospects amid a historically futile season. The trade kicked off a rebuilding process that spanned five seasons, three of which ended with at least 108 losses.
Kremer wasn’t viewed as the gem of the Orioles’ return, but he turned out to be the best player Baltimore received. That doesn’t mean his path to Thursday’s win was easy.
“This hasn’t really set in yet,” Kremer said. “It’s a special group. It’s been quite the road to this, and I’m just happy to be here.”
Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said he wasn’t “surprised” by Kremer’s clutch outing. He wasn’t too familiar with the 2016 14th-round pick until he was included in the Machado trade, but Elias was quickly sold on his potential when he was hired in November 2018.
“That’s as good as I’ve seen him look tonight,” Elias said.
After debuting in 2020, Kremer opened the 2021 season in the major leagues. But he was battered all over the yard and optioned four times to Triple-A, ending the year with a 7.55 ERA in 13 starts for an Orioles club that lost 110 games. He was hurt to begin the 2022 season, but he returned to a vastly different team in June. As Kremer began hitting his stride as a young pitcher, so did the youthful Orioles, emerging last summer as a wild-card contender.
“Yeah, ‘21 was a down year for pretty much all of us,” Kremer said. “But it was a stepping stone. The best way to learn is from failure. That’s what we did.”
They’ve taken the next step this year, and Kremer has handled the two most important games of the season with aplomb. Earlier this month, he pitched five innings of one-run ball in the Orioles’ win over the Tampa Bay Rays to clinch the club’s first playoff berth since 2016. On Thursday, he was even better, striking out eight and allowing just two hits, for his 13th win of the season.
Teammates John Means and Kyle Bradish both said Kremer, with a methodical and consistent approach, is a “big-game” pitcher.
“No moment is too big for him,” Bradish said. “He knew what was on the line, and he just showed up.”
“It’s who he is,” Means said. “He pitches in big moments, and it’s his personality.”
Kremer, perhaps more than any other Oriole, personifies this team — a young player, but one who also survived the rebuild. As he matured, so did the team. And when the lights were brightest this year, he delivered.
“I just think that it was tough for him on a bad team,” Means said. “Once the vibes are good in here, it changed for him. That happened for a lot of guys. Once the team started doing well, a lot of guys started maximizing their potential.”
Hyde spoke glowingly before the game about how Kremer has “grown up” over the past two seasons after the adversity of the previous years. His performance in these critical games, the fifth-year skipper said after the game, is proof of that.
“He handled that Tampa game with so much pressure so well. Just to see him learn to be a pitcher, mature as a pitcher … he’s being a true pitcher. He’s come a long way.”
So have the Orioles.
“We’re not surprising teams anymore,” Hyde said.
Santander’s solo home run off Red Sox starter Chris Sale, his 28th of the season, was the first of many moments that . He clobbered the ninth pitch of his at-bat 405 feet to conquer Camden Yards’ deep left field wall.
Like Hyde, Santander “didn’t care” about the projections. He’s believed since the club’s that it was capable of this.
“We didn’t pay attention to whatever they said,” Santander said. “We just came here with a winning mentality every single day, no different than the other years. That’s special. We just won 100.”
The only other run of the game came in the eighth inning on pinch-hitter Heston Kjerstad’s bloop single that scored Adam Frazier to provide vital insurance.
Following Kremer was a bullpen that’s largely struggled since closer Félix Bautista partially tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow in late August. But DL Hall, Yennier Cano, Cionel Pérez and Wells handled the pressure just as unwaveringly as Kremer, combining to pitch 3 2/3 scoreless innings. Baltimore’s suddenly unflappable pitching staff has surrendered just three runs in its past five games.
Hyde managed Thursday’s game like a postseason one, removing Kremer early to match up his relief corps against Boston’s lineup. Hall, a rookie left-hander who also came up clutch in the first clincher, entered with runners on the corners and one out. He struck out Adam Duvall and induced an inning-ending groundout of Alex Verdugo to escape the threat.
“It’s something that I dream about,” said Hall, who then pitched a scoreless seventh. “It’s awesome to be here, especially with this group of guys.”
Rather than pitching the ninth, Hyde pegged Cano for the eighth. With star Rafael Devers up with two outs, Pérez, a southpaw, got the left-handed hitting two-time All-Star to softly ground out.
Wells followed with a three-up, three-down ninth for his first save since 2021. The 6-foot-8 right-hander was the club’s best starting pitcher in the first half of the season, but he showed signs of fatigue after the All-Star break. He was sent down to the minors, transitioned temporarily to a reliever and missed the first clinching celebration earlier this month. But he was there Thursday to slam the door and .
“You couldn’t write that up better,” catcher James McCann said. “We’re not here without Tyler Wells. … For him to get the save in this big of a game, I’m so happy for him.”
The victory ensures the Orioles (100-59) will end the season without being swept, extending their AL-record streak that dates to May 2022 to 91 series, the longest since World War II.
The AL East title is one that seemed impossible in 2021 when the Orioles lost 110 games.
“If you would’ve told me this back in ‘21, I probably wouldn’t have believed you,” Ryan Mountcastle said. “For us to be here right now, it’s a surreal feeling.”
During those dark days, though, they still had faith that a light, as dim as it appeared at the time, was at the end of the tunnel.
“I knew what we had,” said Means, the top starting pitcher on those rebuilding teams. “I knew what the goal was and we were making all the right moves. Maybe at this level, it was hard to see, but I think when you look down at the lower levels, you saw what was coming and what we were ready for.
“I’m not surprised, to be honest, but to be here now, it’s so special.”
But even entering this season, FanGraphs’ projection system gave Baltimore just a 1.3% chance to win the division.
It’s 100% now.
“You saw all the articles and stuff about playoff odds from the beginning of the season when everyone counted us out,” Kremer said. “As the season progressed, we showed ‘em what we’re here to do.”
Baltimore Sun reporter Nathan Ruiz contributed to this article.
Red Sox at Orioles
Friday, 7:05 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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