Casilla with the Twins, via Wikipedia.

The Orioles are having a fairly busy off-season already. First they picked up Ayala’s option whilst declining Reynolds’s, and now they’ve claimed Alexi Casilla off waivers from the Twins.

Casilla is 28 years old and primarily a second baseman, but he’s played some shortstop and third, as well, and is a good boost to the Orioles’ infield. He’ll probably compete for second base with Robert Andino and Ryan Flaherty, as well as the returning Brian Roberts. Should make for an interesting Spring Training, that’s for sure!

The Orioles made some other announcements today, as well, via Dan Connolly:

On Saturday, players who have filed for free agency can begin to talk with other teams. The Orioles have some interest in retaining pitcher Joe Saunders, outfielder Nate McLouth and designated hitter Jim Thome, but no agreement was reached during the exclusive negotiating period, meaning the three will be able to discuss contracts with all interested parties starting Saturday.

Also Friday, the Orioles announced they have outrighted outfielder Lew Ford, infielder Steve Tolleson and lefty Zach Phillips to Triple-A Norfolk and reinstated right-handers Oliver Drake and Stu Pomeranz, lefty Tsuyoshi Wada, infielder Brian Roberts and outfielder Nolan Reimold from the 60-day disabled list.

So there you have it – busy off-season already, huh?

So here we go. It all comes down to this for now.

LET’S DO IT.

I’ll be live-blogging the game inning by inning, so stay tuned for my ridiculous commentary here!

Top 1st: The Orioles manufactured a quick run – Nate McLouth got on base, stole second, and was driven in by J.J. Hardy. (In the meantime, I’m finding it very hard to root against Yu Darvish since he’s a pitcher that I’ve been watching since 2007.) Orioles 1, Rangers 0.

Bottom 1st: Joe Saunders can’t throw strikes. It led to Ian Kinsler walking, getting to third on an Elvis Andrus single, and scoring on a double play. Orioles 1, Rangers 1.

Top 2nd: Mark Reynolds was hit on the hand by a pitch with one out. He ended up stealing second base. Machado grounded out to end things, though, so no score. Orioles 1, Rangers 1.

Bottom 2nd: Despite his inability to throw strikes, Joe Saunders recorded two strikeouts in this inning. No, I don’t know either. Orioles 1, Rangers 1.

Top 3rd: Yu Darvish threw a 1-2-3 inning. I’d complain, but I find that I have an irrational inability to complain about Yu Darvish being on my television. Orioles 1, Rangers 1.

Bottom 3rd: A double play helped Saunders escape this inning relatively quickly. Orioles 1, Rangers 1.

Top 4th: Jim Thome singled down the left field line, but that’s about it. Orioles 1, Rangers 1.

Bottom 4th: Men on first and third with only one out. Saunders struck out Napoli and then induced a force out to second to escape. Orioles 1, Rangers 1.

Top 5th: Yeah, we’ve got nothing at this point. Orioles 1, Rangers 1.

Bottom 5th: Kinsler led the inning off with a single. However, Andrus hit into a double play with one out, which cleared things up. Saunders is pitching disturbingly well so far for someone who hasn’t been hitting the strike zone too consistently.

Top 6th: J.J. Hardy led the inning off with a single like Kinsler did last half-inning. However, Chris Davis decided to vary from what the Rangers did and singled into right field, advancing Hardy to third with no outs. And then magic happened – Adam Jones came through with a long sacrifice fly to score Hardy! Orioles 2, Rangers 1.

Bottom 6th: Did you realize Joe Saunders only walked one person tonight? After two outs, he handed the ball to former Ranger Darren O’Day. O’Day got the out. Phew! Orioles 2, Rangers 1.

Top 7th: Ryan Flaherty singled with one out. He immediately left the game for Robert Andino, Postseason Hero at least if you’re a Rays fan, who came on as a pinch runner. Machado sacrificed Andino over to second and Yu Darvish left the game. This made my eyes very sad. Andino then stole third on a wild pitch to McLouth, the first pitch by Derek Holland, appearing in a relief role. McLouth proceeded to single to left, bringing in Andino! Holland, evidently stressed, tried a snap throw to first, but the ball got away and McLouth ended up on second. J.J. Hardy struck out, though, and the inning ended there. Orioles 3, Rangers 1.

Bottom 7th: Darren O’Day recorded three easy outs. Nothing spectacular to report here. Orioles 3, Rangers 1.

Top 8th: My boy Koji Uehara came in to pitch the 8th! I MISS YOU, KOJI. His first batter was the man he was traded for, Chris Davis, whom he promptly struck out. Actually, he struck out the entire side. I REALLY MISS YOU, KOJI. Orioles 3, Rangers 1.

Bottom 8th: Mark Reynolds started the inning off with a nice play to stab a ball at first. Kinsler ended up getting on with a bloop of a ball that got stuck in the grass and made it very difficult for J.J. Hardy to pick up. And then Darren O’Day decided it would be a great idea to throw the ball over to first, which he missed. Kinsler ended up on second. Amazingly, O’Day recovered and induced a groundout to short from Andrus, then was replaced by Brian Matusz. Matusz struck out Josh Hamilton on three pitches – THREE – to end the inning. Orioles 3, Rangers 1.

Top 9th: Joe Nathan came in to pitch the 9th for the Rangers. He walked Jim Thome to start things off, then struck Mark Reynolds out in an epic battle that lasted several pitches. Andino then just missed a home run, doubling off the left field wall and moving Thome to third. Lew Ford came in as a pinch runner for Thome. Manny Machado then slapped a blooper past short to drive Ford in (I swear that wasn’t a bad car joke) and move Andino to third. Chris Davis hit a sac fly to center to bring in Andino. The inning ended with J.J. Hardy grounding out to second. Orioles 5, Rangers 1.

Bottom 9th: One pitch, one out for Jim Johnson. Nelson Cruz then singled to left. Michael Young grounded out to second to advance Cruz, bringing up Mike Napoli with two outs. Johnson walked Napoli. A 19-year-old whose name didn’t even appear on the TV screen promptly singled, but David Murphy popped up to McLouth for the final out. Orioles 5, Rangers 1. FINAL.

Bring those Yankees on, baby!

(Unrelated footnote: I am now 2-for-2 so far in the postseason bracket I filled out for the annual competition at the school where my mom teaches. TAKE THAT, MOM’S CO-WORKERS.)

So we hit six home runs in this game, all of them in front of Cal Ripken, Jr.

AWESOME.

Things were running smoothly for the Orioles until the eighth inning, with the team scoring four runs in the first and leading 6-1 until that fateful inning, but then the wheels fell off. After a series of relievers, particularly Pedro Strop, failed to prevent the Yankees from rallying and tying the game up, it was going to take some serious heroics to pull this game back into the Orioles’ favor.

The heroes came in the nick of time.

Adam Jones led off the inning with a homer just one pitch after almost being hit in the face. After a single by Matt Wieters, Mark Reynolds followed him with another homer. Even a pitching change couldn’t stop the barrage, with Chris Davis launching his own moonshot right afterwards.

Jim Johnson came in afterwards and finished the Yankees off, only allowing a base hit in there that was very inconsequential, and the Orioles took game one of the series 10-6.

I cannot even begin to stress how important that eighth-inning rally for the Orioles was. They showed an ability to pick each other up after failure, the energy and strength to keep fighting even late in the game against a strong opponent, and the sheer will to win that’s brought them to this point. They’ve got what it takes to win – confidence, willpower and just enough luck. This team is, simply put, incredible.

I’d love to see them take at least two more games in this series, as that would put them in first place all by themselves by one game, but it’d be even more spectacular if they swept, as tough as that would be to pull off. For tonight, let’s just revel in the fact that we’re once again in first place and have a little party.

I’ll be destressing by watching Novak Djokovic now, thank you very much.

The easiest way to recap this game would be to put a big photo of Mark Reynolds in here and leave it at that, since he’s really the reason we won today (he drove in four runs on two homers – a solo shot and a three-run blast), but that’s a little too easy, so we’re going to have to come up with something else here.

We could also talk about the way the Yankees went through about one million relief pitchers in the eighth inning, or how Randy Wolf relieved Chris Tillman (right elbow stiffness) early on and pitched fairly well. There’s lots of things that we could discuss at length about this particular game, the 133rd the Orioles have played this year.

What I really want to talk about, however, is just how important this game actually was.

The Orioles won, yes, but they were losing initially. They rallied to take a 5-3 lead, which they extended to an 8-3 lead in the eighth inning for some extra insurance (because, as we saw yesterday, you can never have too much of that). They knew more than any of us that they needed to take this game. Not only does it put them just two games out of first place in the AL East (with five games left against the Yankees to play), but it also proves that they’re able to beat good teams.

This entire stretch has proven that, to be honest – they swept the AL Central-leading White Sox and have now taken two of three from the Yankees this weekend. Not bad at all, I’d say. The best bit of all of this is that whilst the Yankees now have to take on the Rays, who are always thrilled to play the spoiler, the Orioles get to go and play against the Blue Jays up in Toronto – and as we saw in the last series, the Blue Jays are not themselves as of late. The Orioles winning this series against the Yankees is a really, really big deal because it’s put them in an advantageous situation: most of the teams they’ll be seeing for the rest of the year are teams they know they can beat. Here’s the remaining schedule:

• 9/3 – 9/5: @ Blue Jays
• 9/6 – 9/9: vs. Yankees
• 9/11 – 9/13: vs. Rays
• 9/14 – 9/16: @ Athletics
• 9/17 – 9/19: @ Mariners
• 9/21 – 9/23: @ Red Sox
• 9/24 – 9/26 vs. Blue Jays (including the makeup doubleheader on 9/24)
• 9/28 – 9/30: vs. Red Sox
• 10/1 – 10/3: @ Rays

With the exception of that West Coast swing that’s going to keep me up way too late for about a week, the remaining games are all against the AL East. The Orioles know they can beat Boston and Toronto at this point, and they’ve done well against Tampa Bay, as well. Knowing that they can beat the Yankees as well has to motivate them at least somewhat and encourage them towards really making a push for the division.

The one series I’m really worried about is the one against Oakland, to be honest. That…that’ll be tough. I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed on that one since at this point we need to win as many games as we possibly can (there are only twenty-nine left).

For now, though, let’s just relax a little bit and be happy with ourselves for performing well this past weekend. We did what we needed to do, I’d say.

We took the opener! First step accomplished!

Truthfully, the score of this game should be 6-0, but Curtis Granderson hit a homer off of Brian Matusz in the 9th. Matusz was otherwise spotless and things went smoothly for the rest of the inning, but I admittedly wanted a shutout.

This win was truthfully a team effort tonight. Miguel Gonzalez pitched seven innings, holding the Yankees off the board as the Orioles scored and scored again. He got into a bit of trouble in the 6th and 7th, but he managed to fight his way out of it and keep the Yankees from scoring. On the offensive end, Mark Reynolds homered twice and J.J. Hardy once, with every starter except Nate McLouth and Omar Quintanilla having at least one hit on the evening. Everyone helped, and as a result everyone won. Except the Yankees, even though they did help us out by not being particularly offensively productive tonight.

Now, I think you all know what time it is…

Oh, a couple of notes:

• The Randy Wolf signing is official now. He’ll be one of the four players added to the roster in the first round of call-ups tomorrow.
• The other three? Xavier Avery, Steve Tolleson and Luis Exposito.
• Oh, and we’re going to be on TV on Thursday.

There are exactly 35 baseball games left for the Orioles to play during the regular season. At this point, every game really counts if this team wants to keep playing after those 35 games are done this year.

Tonight, the Orioles showed yet again that their persistence is paying off. Let me go pull out my trusty game simulator really quickly:

Our hero, who I’ve been incorrectly tagging on this site as ‘McClouth’ (which I need to fix. Stupid typos). (Image from Wikipedia.)

Things started out in the Orioles’ favor tonight. Lew Ford homered in the second inning to give the team a one-run lead, surprising pretty much everyone ever, but the tides turned in the top of the sixth as Kevin Youkilis did the same thing with an extra runner on first. Fortunately for the Orioles, Francisco Liriano wasn’t having the best night in the world, and in the bottom of the inning he loaded the bases up and then walked Nate McLouth, scoring Matt Wieters.

The game’s biggest drama was reserved for the eighth inning, however. After the White Sox took a one-run lead in the top of the inning, Nate McLouth stepped to the plate with Mark Reynolds on base. McLouth proceeded to dump a ball onto Eutaw Street (or at least very close to it, from the video I saw) and then handed the baton to Jim Johnson, who notched yet another save in the top of the ninth. This team just doesn’t quit. I rather like that about them.

There are 35 games left after this one. Based on how this team’s been playing lately, I think we just might have a chance of extending that number a little bit and getting some games in after a lot of the other teams have gone home to golf and rest for the year.

It’s wins like these that separate normal teams from playoff teams, after all. The Orioles were tenacious tonight, as they’ve been this entire year, and they just flat-out refuse to lose. That’s what makes a playoff team. That’s the mentality that breeds champions.

At the very least, I think we might just get a chance to show the entire country.

I really don’t even know where to start with this game. The game itself wasn’t really the problem – although Tommy Hunter giving up home runs is clearly still an issue – but with the umpiring crew. There’s just so much we need to talk about regarding them right now since, although their call didn’t affect any runs scoring during the actual game because Wieters threw out a runner, they made a mockery of baseball tonight.

Here’s what happened: Jhonny Peralta grounded out to third. Manny Machado stopped the ball and threw it wide to first, but Mark Reynolds stretched and made the play. Peralta, in a rare fit of anger, protested that Reynolds’s foot wasn’t on the bag. Video replays clearly showed it was, but MLB doesn’t use expanded replay yet, so the umpires had a conference and astoundingly overturned the call.

Mark Reynolds then did this (.gif via Twitter user @itschadlol):

Naturally, Reynolds was ejected for this sort of behavior, and Showalter soon followed when he came out to argue the overturning of the call. Rumors then swirled around regarding whether or not the Orioles were playing the rest of this game under protest. Games being played under protest are covered by MLB rule 4.19:

4.19
PROTESTING GAMES.
Each league shall adopt rules governing procedure for protesting a game, when a manager claims that an umpire’s decision is in violation of these rules. No protest shall ever be permitted on judgment decisions by the umpire. In all protested games, the decision of the League President shall be final.
Even if it is held that the protested decision violated the rules, no replay of the game will be ordered unless in the opinion of the League President the violation adversely affected the protesting team’s chances of winning the game.

• Rule 4.19 Comment: Whenever a manager protests a game because of alleged misapplication of the rules the protest will not be recognized unless the umpires are notified at the time the play under protest occurs and before the next pitch, play or attempted play. A protest arising on a game-ending play may be filed until 12 noon the following day with the league office.

The problem for the Orioles tonight is that the manager was ejected from the game, so now we have no idea whether or not the team was playing this game under protest. Since they lost, if they were playing this game under protest and their protest was accepted, the game would be replayed starting from that play at first base.

The funny bit regarding all of this is that the play didn’t even matter in the end since Matt Wieters threw out Peralta trying to steal second base. In the end, it became a game about bullpens, and ours was the more tired one.

There’s a bigger issue underlying all of this, though, and that’s the umpiring in MLB right now. In the past few years, umps have become far more outspoken, overstepping boundaries that we didn’t even realize existed until they started complaining about things (like Joe West) and overruled correct calls. In an ideal world, MLB would step in and investigate all of this, but that’s not happening here. It’s depressing, but it’s the truth.

I wonder if this’ll at least prompt MLB to really try out that expanded replay they’re supposedly testing this weekend.

Well, I suppose we can’t win every single game, but I really wanted this one because we’d have gained a game on the Yankees and that would have been fantastic. I keep picturing this team surging in September and overtaking them, and to do that you kind of need to win baseball games like this one.

Buchholz was pretty darn solid tonight, though. He started off iffy, giving up a home run to Mark Reynolds, noted Red Sox killer, but he settled in and that’s probably a pretty good part of why we lost. The bit where Luis Ayala gave up three runs is part of that, too, of course. Tillman did give up three runs of his own, as well, but that’s better than I often expect from the kid, at least. The game was tied for a while, but Ayala pretty much decided that was stupid and had a bad inning.

Need to cheer up since we didn’t gain a game on the Yankees like we were all hoping to tonight? Here you go:

GANGNAM STYLE! It’ll never fail to cheer you up, believe me.

There’s really not much we were able to learn from this game – nothing we didn’t know happened.

Except for Mark Reynolds scoring runs, because that hasn’t happened much lately and it’s nice to see him breaking out. Go and watch the video of him homering. He did it twice tonight. One of them brought in three runs. The entire offense was clicking in the sixth inning, in which the team brought in a hefty five runs at once (against Beckett and Melancon), but it was Reynolds who really capped everything off. He made everything very sparkly and nice.

Josh Beckett continues to be really bad at baseball this year, so I got to put a really bad golf pun in the title, which pleases me. It’s certainly convenient for the no-longer-a-fluke Orioles – this team is definitely good, since it’s August now and they’re still playing at this level. A few years ago, I would’ve never wanted to face a pitcher like Beckett. He was in his prime and was one of the reasons the team won the 2007 World Series. It’s sad to watch players decline after they hit that apex of their careers, but some people handle it better than others, and Beckett is one of those people who isn’t handling it well.

To be fair, I had a feeling he wouldn’t handle it well since he’s always seemed immature to me, but that’s a story for another time.

Oh, but our starting pitcher on the night?

I think we all know how I feel about this.

If you don’t know how I feel about the battery relationship and how important it is to a baseball team, go and read my review of Oofuri here. That was the show that first hammered the concept into me, and that hasn’t changed – if the pitcher and the catcher don’t see eye to eye, the whole team’s going to be thrown off kilter. There’s more emphasis placed upon that relationship in Japan than there is here, and since Wei-Yin Chen left his native Taiwan to pitch in the NPB for some time before coming here, it makes sense that he absorbed the concept of battery as it’s seen in Japan before he joined the Orioles. He clearly knows that it’s important and understands that a good catcher can make or break a pitcher.

This is going to turn into a rant on why I think batteries are so wonderful, so I think I should stop for tonight and just hope that the Orioles can repeat this performance tomorrow. Because this was pretty awesome.

In yo face, Kansas City!

Seriously, this was the 115th game of the season. This is our current record:

This means that if we win one more game, we avoid losing 100 games. We’ve only got 47 games left this season. This is absolutely incredible. Look at this:

I’m not fully sure as to what’s happened here, considering that there are very few changes to this team from last season, but just look at this! Can you believe it? It’s kind of hard to even believe that these are mostly the same Orioles that put up that dismal record last season. Now we’re about to officially escape the possibility of 100 losses.

Also, Manny Machado homered again. So there’s that. Markakis also homered, which tied the game up, and Mark Reynolds of all people had a clutch hit to drive in the winning run this afternoon. Sometimes that happens.

Tomorrow is an off-day, hooray! We’re playing the Red Sox starting on Tuesday, and for once I’m actually liking our chances. Let’s rest up for that series – I’d love the Orioles to prove me right…