Tyler Anderson strikes out 7, Quinn Priester debuts as Orioles pound Pirates

Tyler Anderson was still in spring training mode, feeling his way through his delivery when Austin Hays and Freddy Galvis hit back-to-back home runs off the Pittsburgh Pirates left-hander.

That forced Anderson to switch into regular-season mode in an outing he believed was better than it looked on the scoresheet: two runs on six hits with seven strikeouts.

Anderson’s outing was overshadowed by the Grapefruit League debut of 2019 first-round pick Quinn Priester, who gave up the go-ahead run in the fifth inning. The Baltimore Orioles used an eight-run seventh inning to pull away from the Pirates for a 12-3 victory Monday afternoon at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, Fla.

“My goal is to get ahead out there, and a couple times I got behind on both of those homers,” Anderson said. “But there were a couple pitches I wasn’t executing there, so I felt like I was working myself into some bad counts and got better as it went on. … Those last couple innings, it was just, ‘Let’s start throwing the ball and competing’ and kind of picked things up.”

The Pirates took a 1-0 lead on a solo home run by Ke’Bryan Hayes in the first inning, then tied it in the third. Adam Frazier, who went 2 for 3 to boost his batting average to .667 (10 for 15) singled to right, stole second base, reached third on an error by catcher Chance Sisco. Frazier scored on a single by Hayes, who went 2 for 3 and has six extra-base hits this spring.

The Pirates gave Priester, ranked their No. 4 prospect and No. 58 overall by Baseball America, his first chance to pitch in a game. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound right-hander allowed one run on one hit, one walk and a stolen base and also had a balk while facing four batters in two-thirds of an inning.

Priester relieved Anderson in the fifth inning and walked leadoff batter Cedric Mullins, who stole second base and reached third on a balk. Priester got Trey Mancini to pop up to second, but Mullins scored on an RBI double to right field by Anthony Satander to give the Orioles a 3-2 lead. Priester got Pedro Severino to ground out to third for the second out before being replaced by Chris Stratton, who went 1 1/3 innings and has yet to allow a hit against 10 batters this spring.

“Certainly not what I was looking to do today, but good to get the first one out of the way,” Priester said. “I did some things well, more things not as well as I expect to here in the future, but it’s all a learning process. Need to get better from it and go from there.”

The Orioles blew the game open by batting around the order in an eight-run seventh inning to make it 11-2. Edgar Santana gave up four consecutive singles and a three-run homer to Jahmai Jones to make it 8-2. Shea Spitzbarth replaced Santana but gave up a walk, a single, had two wild pitches and an RBI single. The Orioles added another run in the eight on a Yusniel Diaz RBI single.

Chad Kuhl is scheduled to start for the Pirates against Jose Berrios and the Minnesota Twins at 1:05 p.m. Tuesday in Fort Myers.