This game can be summed up by my cat, Murphy, who is currently doing this in reaction to everything he’s seen:

I have a fairly baseball-savvy cat.

Chris Davis pitched in this game (bottom 16th). Chris Davis hit 90 on the gun and successfully recorded three outs, even though there was a gapper in there that almost brought Marlon Byrd home. He was thrown out at the plate and demolished by Wieters. Oh, and this was after Davis went 0-7 with 5 Ks. I think that’s a Platinum Sombrero. He went on to make his eighth out against position player Darnell McDonald in the 17th inning.

Darnell McDonald also pitched in this game (top 17th). McDonald had trouble getting calls because back in the 10th inning he argued balls and strikes with the umpire. Eventually, he gave up a 3-run homer to Adam Jones.

Chris Davis then went back out for the 17th and successfully recorded three more outs, with losing pitcher Darnell McDonald hitting into a double play. And that was that.

Things probably lost in the scrum, considering that this game went for…well, way too long:

• Will Middlebrooks hit his first Major League home run. It was a grand slam (shades of Daniel Nava). That tied the game up at 5-5, but that was back about ten years ago, or so it feels.
• Both bullpens were incredible today. On the other hand, everyone is probably completely fried, which isn’t good for either side.
• J.J. Hardy had 5 hits today. Adrian Gonzalez was 0-7.

This game started at 1:35. It ended at 7:44. That’s over six hours. I’ll be resting my weary, concussed head now.

I was listening to this song for most of the game, and it seems to have been effective in some way:

Yeah, that’s a song in Danish about The Sopranos. I don’t even know.

Anyway, let’s talk about the Orioles (I’ll talk about Frank Robinson in the morning – too many emotions to sum it up right now). Because tonight they actually got a ton of hits and things. They also took some hits. Okay, by ‘took some hits’ I mean ‘Wei-Yin Chen took a line drive to the nuts.’ He turned out to be fine and actually went seven innings tonight, which I’m fairly sure is the second-most by an Orioles starter this season after Jason Hammel’s almost-no-hitter-thing. Luis Ayala finished things off, pitching the either and ninth innings.

Also, the Orioles strung together a ton of small hits. They got ten runs out of this. I’d say that’s fairly impressive. (There was also a Eutaw Street homer by Chris Davis. It was an absolute BOMB.)

I think Frank Robinson will be proud tonight, boys.

Sorry, Adam, but you didn't get hit in the balls tonight. Good game, though!

Wins make Louise the sheepdog happy.

Hooray, another positive game!

Again, it happened when I wasn’t watching – I was out in Manhattan going to an open house for the school I plan to study archiving at. I should just stop watching the Orioles play and then look at what they do after they’re done playing and analyze it.

I can’t give up baseball that easily, though. Unfortunately, that may make the Orioles lose, which is not exactly the best thing ever.

Here’s what happened tonight, which I did not see:

• Sac fly by Ryan Flaherty in the 5th. Orioles up 1-0.
• Eric Thames drives in two for the Blue Jays in the 6th. Orioles down 2-1.
• Adam Jones singles in Nick Markakis in the 6th. Orioles tied 2-2.
• Adam Jones homers in the 8th. Orioles up 3-2.
• Chris Davis homers in the 8th, also bringing home Matt Wieters. Orioles up 5-2, final score.
• Oh, and Darren O’Day gets the win.

I’m actually quite upset that I missed tonight’s game since Brian Matusz finally had a quality start – he allowed only two runs over six innings, and now his ERA is all the way back down to 5.66, which is the lowest it’s been in recent memory. His line tells me that he gave up four hits and two walks, but struck out three, so I’m going to assume that most of the outs he created were by pitching to contact.

Pitching to contact, by the way? Very mature. It’s a great sign for Matusz’s future if this is what happened here.

Tomorrow, I’m going to actually get to watch the game. Expect a loss, everyone.

It's kind of strange to be posting this, but it's a decent description of the season so far.

I think that says it all. Right? Right.

The Orioles scored two runs whilst I was at work transcribing documents. Between the time it took me to go home, including picking up my brother, the White Sox scored two runs, as well. It remained like that for a while, but then things happened that I guess I can describe as ‘good.’ Three runs scored in the 5th inning – two of them on an Adam Jones homer – and the Orioles had a 5-2 lead. The White Sox pushed a run across in the 8th, keeping things close at 5-3.

Then we get to the 9th inning, where the exciting things happened…at least for the White Sox. They actually loaded the bases with two outs. To be fair, Jim Johnson really loaded the bases with two outs by hitting Paul Konerko on the hand. Somehow, he managed to get a strikeout – albeit one where the ball got away and Paulino had to run and grab it to tag the batter out – and the game was over.

I really don’t know how we win these, in all seriousness.

Tonight we learned that Po of Teletubbies fame is a White Sox fan. Or maybe an Orioles fan, too, despite his jersey. Either way, he had great seats at tonight’s game.

There was some good news from this game, and it came in the form of Jake Arrieta. Despite errors all around him, he managed to remain composed and push through, which is a huge step for a pitcher on the road to maturity. That being said, even though the offense got him a no-decision by tying things up late, he was let down by his defense, and that was mainly on Chris Davis.

Let’s talk about Chris Davis really quickly. It was painful, so I’ll try to get through it really quickly and go back to watching Richard Hammond run things over with a tank, which is what I’m doing now as I write this. Let’s not talk about the crush I had on Hammond in high school, okay? Basically, Chris Davis ruined the sixth inning by failing to catch two balls. This led to Arrieta having to make five outs total in the inning, throwing 30 pitches. It’s really not fair, considering that over his first five innings Arrieta only threw 65 total. He was cruising through this game.

Also of note is that Matt Wieters made two throwing errors tonight. Generally, he doesn’t make too many of those, but he’s made three this year already after making five total last season. That’s…not good. We need to fix that, Weets, because that’s disconcerting. Very, very disconcerting.

Oh, and Nolan Reimold made an Ike Davis catch (which means he flew over the railing but held on to the ball). Except there was a runner on third and it became a sac fly because Nolan was in the seats. Yep. I think that pretty much sums this game up in a nutshell – stuff like that.

Suddenly, everything changed in the ninth. Nolan Reimold hit a solo homer to bring the score to 4-3, and after an out Adam Jones slugged one, too, tying it up. And once again, there was free baseball. This is the tenth game of the season and the Orioles have already gone into extras twice already – three times in ten games is a little strenuous on the viewer in some cases, no?

Tonight, though, was a good case. Mark Reynolds led off in the tenth and hit what looked to be a long fly ball out to center. It was dropped, which somehow placed him on third base even though he didn’t hustle right out of the gate. Things got stranger when Chris Davis, the goat of the game up until this point, doubled off the wall in left field, which scored Reynolds. Andino then followed with an infield hit, which meant there were men on first and third with no outs for Nolan Reimold, who started the rally in the ninth. Nolan smacked a base hit, bringing home Davis. J.J. Hardy bunted, hoping to advance the runners…and ended up getting on base, loading them up instead.

The first out didn’t come until Markakis came up with the bases loaded and Andino was forced out at home. That’s how weird this tenth inning was. Jones followed with a strikeout, which continued his rough night at the plate, though. Meh.

And then God Weets hit a grand slam, making it 10-4. Pedro Strop, who came on in the ninth, ended up getting a win. He shut the door easily in the tenth and this team actually clawed back to a victory.

I can’t even. Between Richard Hammond driving a freaking tank on my TV and the Orioles doing this, I just can’t.

I should probably just go to bed now. Yay winning? Yay winning!

This one…let’s call this one The No-Hitter That Wasn’t.

Jason Hammel came awfully close to throwing a no-no, taking it into the 8th before Justin Morneau broke it up with a double off the right field wall. In the end, only two hits – both in the 8th – accounted for the only Twins run of the day. Hammel was that good today. We flirted with greatness this afternoon.

The offense didn’t contribute too much, but it was enough – J.J. Hardy homered in the second, and two more runs came across in the sixth when Wilson Betemit doubled in Adam Jones and Nick Johnson.

On a related note, Nick Johnson’s moustache is really rad. I’ve known that for a while, but I just wanted to share that today.

The Orioles are now 3-0. This places them, in theory, in first place in the AL East since even if the Rays sweep the Yankees today Baltimore comes alphabetically before Tampa Bay. It’s kind of strange to be in first place, but then again, it’s a small sample size.

Speaking of small sample sizes, MASN ran this graphic during the game and I screencapped it:

Markakis saw pitches after this graphic, of course, because this appeared in the middle of the game. Before the game started, he was leading the league in batting, which is probably why they brought this up. At any rate, what we need to take from this is that Markakis recovered very, very quickly from his surgery and we probably don’t need to worry about him.

Actually, with the way this team’s played, it’s tough to find things to worry about. Help me find something to worry about, won’t you?

I remember reading once - when he was with the Rangers - that Tommy Hunter bakes cakes. Here is a picture of cake.

So tonight’s story is called Tommy Hunter. And the offense.

Tommy Hunter was just incredible tonight, pitching into the eighth inning before loading the bases and being removed. He didn’t allow a single run, although he scattered hits here and there throughout his night. As a reward, the fans voted him MASN’s player of the game, an honor he certainly earned tonight.

And then there was the offense. It exploded for an uncharacteristic eight runs tonight. There were people hitting with runners in scoring position, a few homers (Weets, Jonesy and Markakis), and even some adept baserunning from folk hero Robert Andino. His legend grows.

The Twins managed to push two runs across in the eighth when Pedro Strop came on to clean up after Hunter, but after those two – who were credited to Hunter – he closed the door, and Luis Ayala pitched a clean ninth. It’s nice having a bullpen you can depend on, to be honest. I mean, I was fully expecting a blown game here, and the bullpen actually comes in and slams the door shut without catching anybody’s fingers in the door jamb. It was quick and clean and effective.

To be honest, the team looks suspiciously good right now, and it’s unnerving me. Are people going to jump on the bandwagon after two wins? The Twins aren’t exactly the best team in the league. What’s going to happen when the Orioles face tougher opposition? The Yankees are coming into town on Monday. This team looks good now, but let’s see how they hold up when they’re facing a team that they’re overmatched by on paper.

I guess I’ll sit here and be cautiously optimistic for now. I kind of like being optimistic. It’s better than complaining all the time.

(P.S. Ryan Flaherty made his Major League debut tonight! Congratulations, Ryan, you’ve made it!)

This man has owned the Twins today.

Here’s our first official game of 2012! I’ll continually update this post through the game as things happen.

• Top 1st: All three Twins retired by balls hit to Arrieta. First out of the game was a grounder back to the mound, and after walking the second batter, Mauer also grounded back out to Arrieta, setting up a double play. Nice.
  
• Bottom 1st: Well, Nick Markakis is certainly healthy. He just absolutely clobbered a ball over the left field fence – and to be honest, I can’t remember him ever hitting a homer out to left field, so it’s a very pleasant surprise. J.J. Hardy was on base with a walk, so the Orioles are now up 2-0.
• Top 2nd: Nothing particularly exciting happened here, but Arrieta just recorded his first strikeout of 2012 by painting the inside corner of the plate at 96 mph. That ended the inning.
• Bottom 2nd: Pavano gets his first strikeout to end the inning in a very similar way to Arrieta, but otherwise nothing particularly exciting happened.
• Top 3rd: Arrieta is absolutely dealing today. He retired the first two batters of the inning on strikeouts, with the third one being taken care of with a simple grounder. Wow.
• Bottom 3rd: Pavano’s getting more comfortable now – he’s retired eight Orioles in a row. It should also be noted that Andino almost got a hit, but the mound made the play and he was thrown out.
• Top 4th: A fan ran on the field wearing nothing but black shorts and a black cape. That was…interesting. Also interesting is that two men got on base for the Twins and Arrieta still managed to get out of it.
• Bottom 4th: Markakis walks, then Adam Jones doubles. Matt Wieters then sacrifices himself on Good Friday to allow Markakis to score and Jones to move to third. Orioles now up 3-0.
• Top 5th: Arrieta retires the side easily – nothing exciting here.
• Bottom 5th: The Orioles are also retired easily. Oh.
• Top 6th: Arrieta delivers his fourth 1-2-3 inning of the game. He’s looking really good right now. He’s also made four putouts in this game.
• Bottom 6th: A bit of a gift for Markakis, but he knocks a triple when Doumit struggles to make the catch in right (he shouldn’t be in right, but anyways…). Hardy scores from first, and it’s 4-0 Birds. Markakis later tried to score from third on a Wieters sacrifice fly, but Joe Mauer didn’t like that idea so he got him out.
• Top 7th: It’s taken him 97 pitches, but Arrieta’s kept the Twins off the board for the entire game. Attaboy, Jake! Mark Reynolds also made a surprisingly skilled play at third base.
• Bottom 7th: Wilson Betemit gets his first hit as an Oriole, but he’s erased when Mark Reynolds hits into a double play. Eh, go figure. Lindstrom is coming in now to replace Arrieta.
• Top 8th: Lindstrom starts off iffy, giving up a hit, but with help from Nolan Reimold he records two quick outs afterwards. Reynolds then throws the third out wide, but Chris Davis literally saves him by keeping his toe on the bag before faceplanting.
• Bottom 8th: Jeff Gray relieves Pavano. Andino promptly singles. After Reimold grounds out, Hardy walks. A pitching change successfully eliminates Markakis for the first time today, bringing up Jones with two outs. Of course, we don’t score and he fans.
• Top 9th: Happy Opening Day, Troy Patton! You gave up a two-run homer! Willingham drove that one all the way out to left center with one out. Jim Johnson comes in to bail him out. Although it gets a bit tense, he’s able to close things out, and we’ve won on Opening Day!

It should be noted that during the bottom of the 3rd inning, Armando Galarraga was released to make room for Dana Eveland on the AAA Norfolk roster. Eveland reported to Norfolk today.

As it usually is with the Orioles, whenever one of those rare positive things happens, something bad has to happen, as well. So here’s a wonderful and depressing edition of your Orioles Chirps.

• The Orioles and Adam Jones agreed to a one-year deal, thus avoiding arbitration. Now they’ve got time to work on a longer deal without worrying about a tumultuous hearing hanging over their heads. This is the good news.
• Now for the bad news: Zach Britton’s shoulder still hurts. This injury was sustained in August. It is now February. This is really, really not good, especially since, you know, Britton is kind of important for the rotation.

See? Good news, bad news. It’s great to know that Adam Jones is all set to go and the team successfully avoided arbitration – that’s averted a potential major distraction for everyone. Britton still being irritated by his shoulder injury, however, is really troubling – he’s expected to compete for a spot in the rotation during Spring Training this season, and if he’s hurt…well, then we’ve lost one of our better starters. We don’t really have too many of those, so this is a huge blow. Great.

At least Spring Training is right around the corner.

I’ll get to Melvin Mora once I can fully collect my thoughts on him. There’s a lot to say there. And a lot of children. Quintuplets, you know.

For now, here’s a video of Koji Uehara. At around 4:25, he picks Adam Jones’ catch as the best play he saw in 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNFRUkpr4mE

(How did I find this? Adam Jones himself retweeted it. Thanks, Adam!)