Corbin Burnes cut his hair and extended his start, but what happened tonight was not pretty.

Burnes allowed four runs in the sixth inning and the offense faltered again in the Orioles’ 6-0 loss to the Astros in front of 22,212 spectators at Camden Yards.

The Yankees lead the division by 1 ½ games, the Orioles’ largest deficit since they trailed by two games on June 25.

After allowing a career-high eight runs and ten hits last week, Burnes was ready to throw his 20^th good start. However, the Astros sent eight batters to the plate in the sixth inning, ripping the game open and forcing manager Brandon Hyde to use his bullpen after 5 2/3.

Burnes allowed six runs (five earned) and eight hits. The damage was extensive when Ben Gamel hit a single at just 77.8 mph in the sixth inning to drive in a run, Burnes caught Jake Meyers’ bunt and threw the ball over first base, and Shay Whitcomb delivered a two-run single.

“I thought he had the stuff,” Hyde said. “Just the sixth inning, which started with a bloop single. They didn’t hit that many balls hard against him that night. Just a couple ground balls that got through, a couple ground balls that were just out of reach for double play balls to get him out of the inning. That stuff was good. It just didn’t work out the way he wanted it to.”

“Five and a third, really good,” Burnes said. “Yeah, we just got to the point where we were getting ahead of the hitters early in the game, keeping the ball down and making the contact we wanted, and for five and actually two thirds, it was really good. AB against Gamel, made some mistakes. Didn’t knock him out of the game with two strikes and it was really just one pitch away from a good start. So it was frustrating that inning dragged on there and then they just made mistakes in the zone and they didn’t miss.”

Matt Bowman made his debut for the Orioles and threw 1 1/3 scoreless innings. Gregory Soto resurfaced and delivered his fifth consecutive scoreless appearance, stranding two runners after a two-out walk and a hit batter in the eighth inning.

Left-hander Nick Vespi, in his first appearance with the Orioles since June 30, held the lead at six in the ninth inning.

“We managed more than three scoreless innings out of the bullpen,” Hyde said. “That’s the highlight.”

Rookie Spencer Arrighetti was 5-11 with a 5.20 ERA and a 1.455 WHIP in 22 starts before tonight. He managed three hits in six innings against the Orioles (74-55).

The Orioles (74-55) have scored three times in three of their last five games. They finished the season with six hits on Monday. And they are 9-11 this month after going 12-13 in July.

“You have to give Arrighetti credit for being a really good pitcher and hitting us extremely hard,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “We didn’t do anything offensively all night and just hit a few balls hard. It’s hard to win when you only get three hits.”

Gunnar Henderson hit a two-out double in the first inning and Ryan Mountcastle hit a one-out double in the second inning. Anthony Santander hit a one-out walk in the third inning and Adley Rutschman hit a one-out single in the fourth inning. The Orioles were unable to score.

Jackson Holliday finished the fourth inning with a strikeout and ended the game with a flyout on Austin Slater’s walk with two outs. He went hitless in his last 16 at-bats.

Things got so bad for the Orioles that Mountcastle sprained his wrist while jumping to second base and had to be substituted on the field at the beginning of the ninth inning.

“As the game went on, it just hurt a little bit,” Hyde said.

Cedric Mullins worked a leadoff walk against Shawn Dubin in the eighth inning and Colton Cowser worked a one-out walk after striking out three times with Arrighetti in the game. Santander and Henderson flew out to center.

The crowd was very loud at Santander’s ball, as if they wanted to get him to reach the fence. Nothing worked.

“We just have to play better. It’s as simple as that,” Ryan O’Hearn said. “It’s hard to win a game when you only have three hits. I think we hit a lot of balls hard to some guys, I can think of three or four off the top of my head, but just one of those nights. We have to find a way to break through and play better as a unit. That’s really all that matters.”

“When we’re at our best, guys are drawing a lot of fouls, getting hard hits, getting longer at bats, getting walks and there’s a lot of traffic throughout the game. I think that’s where we’re at our best. If you don’t do that, then the first time someone is in scoring position that night with runners or whatever, there’s a lot of pressure on the guy to get his job done and get the big hit. I just think the offense runs better when we come in as a unit, wear down the pitcher, see a lot of pitches, like I said, grind through, get guys on base and then relieve some of that pressure.

“We’re going to get through it. It’s a long season with ups and downs. It’s been a tough time, but I have a lot of confidence in our guys and our offense. I think we’re going to turn things around and start to get some things right.”

Burnes must have visited the team’s barber after the media gained access to the clubhouse. The back of his head was high and tight. A much cleaner look that didn’t fit his line.

“I think we had a good plan from the beginning,” he said. “We attacked and got out to the lead and, like I said, had five and a half minutes of weak contact until that Gamel AB. We did what we wanted to do. It’s so frustrating to see the last line show what it did, but I think you have to take the positives from it that you were one pitch away from another quality start and you were able to move on to the next one.”

Burnes threw just seven pitches in the first inning and didn’t allow a hit until the fourth, when Yordan Alvarez followed a walk and a disengagement balk with a single that scored Jose Altuve. The Orioles couldn’t make a double play after Yanier Diaz’s grounder to Ramón Urías and had to settle for a forced out. Two consecutive singles by Victor Caratini and Gamel increased the Astros’ lead to 2-0.

After Burnes retired the team in the fifth inning after 11 pitches in order, leaving the score at 69, Alex Bregman led off the sixth with a single, the Orioles again settled for a force pass to Alvarez’s chopper to Mountcastle, Diaz hit a single, another out was recorded on a force pass, and the next three batters reached the field. Meyers was credited with an infield single, with Burnes’ error complicating matters.

The Orioles suffered their fifth shutout and their rookie Cade Povich made his 10th major league start on Friday night, while the Astros sent Hunter Brown to the mound.

The Astros have won nine straight road games. The Orioles are 0-4 at home, their first loss in a season series since 2019. The home run streak ends at 16 games.

“I think we’re having a tough time offensively right now,” Hyde said. “We’ve got some guys who are having some pretty good years, and we’re confident they’ll come out of this and get back to being the offensive team we were in the first half.”

“I think we believe we can play baseball the way we started the year and we know we can play that way,” Burnes said. “It starts with us on the mound and me. I haven’t done my job the last two starts. So I’ve got to turn things around and make the one pitch we need to get out of there. But yeah, we’ve been in a rough patch, but we’ve got a lot of baseball left to play.”

* Braxton Bragg of Single-A Delmarva struck out 11 batters, allowed one run and no walks in 5 1/3 innings. First-round draft pick Vance Honeycutt had a single, two walks and a run in his first game with the Shorebirds as a designated hitter.