Cade Povich raised his glove to his face and yelled as he drifted toward the third base line. Catcher Gary Sánchez walked to the mound and put an arm around his shoulder.

The body language told an unpleasant story. The Orioles didn’t gain any momentum from back-to-back wins the past two nights. Such a thing doesn’t exist in baseball. The guy holding the ball sets the tone.

Povich kept the Reds scoreless for two innings and watched his start disintegrate, surrendering a career-high three home runs and tying his career high with five walks in 3 1/3. One of the weakest offensive teams in the majors statistically was giving him the business.

Manager Brandon Hyde removed Povich after seven runs scored and the Orioles lost 8-3 before an announced sellout crowd of 42,587 at Camden Yards that voiced its agitation on a few occasions.

Heston Kjerstad homered again, following Sánchez’s leadoff single off Scott Barlow in the eighth with a 407-footer to center field at 105.9 mph.

Cedric Mullins has his timing down at the plate in more ways than one. He stayed blazing hot with a leadoff home run in the second inning, his fifth this season. Mullins lined a fastball onto the flag court at a mere 345 feet less than 10 minutes after the Orioles played a video tribute to close friend Austin Hays, who returned to Camden Yards with the Reds.

That was the only hit off left-hander Andrew Abbott until Kjerstad’s questionable infield single with two outs in the fifth. Abbott retired 11 in a row, 14 of the first 16 and 18 of 21 on the night. The Orioles struck out 11 times against him in six innings, a season-high 15 for the game and fell to 8-11.

Right-handers went 0-for-11 against Abbott with eight strikeouts, three from Tyler O’Neill, who returned to the lineup after missing two games with neck soreness.

“Every team is going to go through ups and downs,” said Adley Rutschman. “I think for our guys right now, we just got to continue to get back to who we are and I don’t think we need to reinvent anything. Our team knows how to win. We got a great group in this locker room. I think we’re just going to continue to grow closer and continue to play as a team.”

Povich brought back “Piano Man” as his warmup song, ditching “The Real Slim Shady,” and stranded Santiago Espinal in the first inning after a one-out double. Hays received a loud ovation, waved to the crowd and struck out on a sweeper.

The pitch also netted strikeouts against Matt McLain and Spencer Steer in the third inning, but Elly De La Cruz hit a three-run homer on a ball that bounced off the top of the center field fence and arced back onto the field. Initially ruled a double, the call was changed to a home run after a challenge.

De La Cruz’s homer came one pitch after right fielder O’Neill failed to make a diving catch of Espinal’s sinking line drive, but Jorge Mateo gathered the ball and got the force at second base.

Jeimer Candelario led off the fourth with a homer, Jose Trevino doubled with one out, Blake Dunn walked and McLain found the seats in center for a 7-1 lead.

Another walk followed and Povich was done after 84 pitches, 48 for strikes. His ERA rose from 3.60 to 6.38, and it would be worse if a scoring change in Kansas City hadn’t turned a three-run triple into a Mateo error in center.

“Just didn’t think the command was there,” Hyde said “Some leadoff walks, hung a breaking ball to De La Cruz in that spot. I thought the curveball was pretty good early. Just a ton of arm-side misses, kind of uncompetitive pitches outside the strike zone.”

“Command, I think, is kind of the obvious thing,” Povich said. “Felt, honestly, really good coming into the game, pregame bullpen. It was the first couple innings then, just honestly lost it and never made the adjustment I needed to.”

Learn from a start like this or flush it and forget.

“A little bit of both,” Povich said. “Obviously, I’ve kind of gotten out of the way of some of these games just limiting the walks and giving up probably too many hits than I want. This was a game where I gave up too many hits and had a lot of guys on base because of the walks. To learn, I think there’s a little bit of learning to do, just for the past couple of games. I did it at the end of the year last year. We’re a lot earlier in the year. So I’ll take a look at it like I did last year and figure it out.”

The rotation ERA swelled to 5.57, 29th in the majors and last in the American League, and Brandon Young is making his major league debut Saturday afternoon.

Scott Blewett allowed an unearned run and four hits with four strikeouts in 2 2/3 innings, and his 43-pitch outing could get him removed from the roster to create room for Young. The bolder move would be to option Povich with another off-day coming Monday and Kyle Gibson getting closer to joining the rotation, but the Orioles might want to give him more than four starts.

The unearned run scored on Hays’ fly ball down the right field line that three Orioles chased and let drop with two runners on base. Mateo tried for the out at second base and made a poor throw.

The Reds’ .213 average before tonight ranked 27th in the majors, their .289 on-base percentage was 24th and their .626 OPS was 25th. They were batting .146 against left-handers, third lowest in the majors.

Rutschman hit leadoff for the first time this season – he did it twice in 2024 – and drew a walk in the first inning. He moved up with two outs on a pair of wild pitches, but Ryan Mountcastle struck out.

Mullins was the only other Oriole to reach base, circling them in the second, until the official scorer gave Kjerstad a hit with two outs in the fifth after De La Cruz fielded a ground ball behind the bag and slipped.

The Orioles are batting .186 against southpaws through 19 games.

“Definitely not handling lefties,” Hyde said. “Ced homer, and our other hit against him was because the shortstop slipped. You try to rely on your right-handed guys to have good at-bats against him. I thought our at-bats against him last year were OK. Rutschman went deep, Mateo went deep. Hit some balls hard against him. Tonight, I thought we had too big of swings, didn’t take our walks. It was a tough night for us offensively. A lot of punchouts.”

* Cionel Pérez retired all six batters faced and struck out three.

“The highlight for me is Cionel Pérez,” Hyde said. “Hopefully this gets him going a little bit.”

* Jordan Westburg went 0-for-3 and is hitless in his last 27 at-bats.

Asked what he’s seeing with Westburg, Hyde said, “A guy pressing. I gave him a day off a couple days ago. He’s really trying hard and he’s just out in front, getting in bad counts and all those things when someone is going through a tough time. He’s getting in bad counts and he’s expanding and it looks like he’s trying to catch everything way out in front and not trusting his hands.”

Hyde added that it isn’t an IL situation with Westburg.

* Tonight’s attendance was the largest at Camden Yards for a non-Opening Day game in April since April 26, 2015 versus the Red Sox (43,802).

* Single-A Delmarva’s Keeler Morfe was removed from tonight’s game with a sprained right ring finger. He allowed an unearned run in the first inning after walking two batters and hitting one. Left fielder Braylin Tavera committed a fielding error.

Morfe started for the Orioles’ prospects in this year’s Spring Breakout game. MLB Pipeline ranks him ninth in the organization.