Another Opening Day has come and gone, and the Orioles won. It’s been a good one.

I’m a little more dedicated to this sport than the average human. Today, though, I took a new leap – I did the most delinquent, naughty thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I watched the Orioles game in class.

I wasn’t going to miss Opening Day for the Orioles – that’s a very important game to watch, after all. Unfortunately, one of my graduate school classes starts at 3:30 every Tuesday and lets me out at 5:50. The Orioles started playing today at 3:00. I have MLB At Bat on my phone, so I sidled into class, plugged my phone into the wall to keep it charging, and started watching the game on mute.

Without further ado, I present my notes from my Introduction to Information Professions course. I hope Cooperstown needs a new archivist soon.

I even drew baseball enthusiasts Buster Keaton and Joe E. Brown in my notes. But my stupid Comedian Heaven project isn’t the point here.

This was a wonderful day. For the first time, I had to suppress my reactions to a three-run homer (that was for you, Earl Weaver, I’m sure of it) in a public place where I shouldn’t have been watching a sporting event. I was living the dream. Best 1.13 GB of data I’ve ever used.

Your basic scoring summary is this:

• Matt Wieters 2-run homer in the 1st after an Adam Jones double
• Ben Zobrist solo shot in the 4th
• Rays string together some hits and tie things up in the 6th, then take the lead 3-2
• Orioles come roaring back in the 7th; Jones doubles in Roberts and Markakis, and after Wieters is walked Chris Davis hits the aforementioned three-run homer (in honor of Earl, let’s say)
• Matt Wieters actually doesn’t throw someone out at second; the error leads to a fourth run scoring for the Rays

Jason Hammel looked pretty good in his first start of the year, although he did run into trouble and allow the two runs that allowed the Rays to temporarily take the lead. Fortunately for him, the team was very offensively strong today and bailed him out. Jim Johnson was old reliable in the 9th, so no worries there. The rest of the bullpen also looked delightful, so they’re still a strength.

Actually, today the entire team looked really, really good. I’m excited.

I just can’t imagine my professor would be if she knew what I was actually taking notes on during her PowerPoint presentation.

The Orioles had three Gold Glove nominees this year. All three won.

I’d say that just about caps off the incredible season these guys put together, don’t you?

Check this out:

Shortstop J.J. Hardy, center fielder Adam Jones and catcher Matt Wieters were named American League Gold Glove winners at their positions on Tuesday night. It’s the first time since 1998 that three Orioles have earned baseball’s annual benchmark of fielding excellence in the same season.

The Orioles’ three Gold Glove winners — which are chosen by a vote of managers and coaches — are the most of any team in the majors this season.

Weets and Jonesy have won before, but this was J.J. Hardy’s first time winning the coveted award. Congrats to all three of them!

In the meantime, please continue to stay safe from Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath. I’m going to go and do a celebratory dance in my house.

This is going to be a quick and dirty post because I’m not sure how long I’m going to have power here before Sandy strikes, but here we go.

The Orioles have three Gold Glove finalists – announcements will be made Tuesday night, when I might not even have power. Anyhow, the Orioles nominees are:

• Matt Wieters, C
• J.J. Hardy, SS
• Adam Jones, CF

…which pretty much shocks nobody who’s been watching the Orioles at all this year, but you get the point.

More importantly, if you’re able to still read this, stay safe. Don’t do anything rash in the storm – take it easy and take care of yourselves. Hang in there, everyone!

Game 5, Game 5!

I could make another Star Wars joke here since I said ‘force,’ but I’m not that cheesy, even when I’m really, really tired.

Tonight all came down to the bullpens, as is to be expected, but this time it went the Orioles’ way, requiring a Game 5 to be played tomorrow – well, later today, actually – at 5 pm. I will be at New York Comic Con when this happens, which means you can probably expect something major to happen. This was one of those typical Orioles extra inning wins – take the starter (Saunders) out after five and two thirds, then throw the bullpen out there and let them pitch well into the night until the other team’s bullpen inevitably fails. It worked fairly well tonight, with Manny Machado leading off the thirteenth with a double, Nate McLouth sacrificing him over to third, and J.J. Hardy driving him in. Jim Johnson then pitched better than he has all series to close things down.

It’s a strategy that’s served this team particularly well, especially in their David vs. Goliath situations like this series – a war of attrition. Wearing the enemy down gradually instead of throwing all your resources at them at once tends to be pretty effective, especially since it can chip away at your enemy’s morale, too. It’s given the Orioles a chance here.

It’s up to them to capitalize on this chance tomorrow.

In related news, it’s a relief to hear that Joba Chamberlain’s x-rays came back negative. The look on Matt Wieters’s face said it all – things like that are genuinely scary.

So this afternoon played out almost exactly like last night except that it took the Orioles 14 innings to get the same result.

I was at work this afternoon giving tours, and when I finally drove home, I found that the Orioles had just wrapped up a rather long game. They’re quite good at winning in extras – they’re 13-2 this season and have won thirteen straight, which is a record (an extended record, really).

I didn’t get to watch this game, which makes me a little sad because I would’ve loved to see it, but here’s some quite interesting facts:

• We’re in first place by half a game right now. If the Yankees lose, we get it all to ourselves. (C’MON, BOSTON.)
• Matt Wieters is going to be a dad soon! Yay! Now you can make Da Vinci Code jokes about his child.
• We have a winning season! Today’s win means that we can’t finish under .500. PARTY TIME!

And now…we wait. And play nineteen more baseball games.

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.

I set up my webcomic to run for the week before I went and wrote this recap because I needed to simmer down a bit. The Orioles could have easily won this game and they decided not to, so I was less than thrilled.

Wei-Yin Chen pitched a pretty darn good ballgame for six innings, helping the Orioles hold onto a 3-1 lead that they achieved mostly through small-ball (and a Matt Wieters homer), but he unraveled in the 7th, and after he allowed the Yankees’ second run to cross the plate and put two more runners on, he was lifted for Pedro Strop. Strop walked two consecutive batters, walking in a run, and then allowed one more run to cross the plate after J.J. Hardy was unable to make a play at shortstop. Brian Matusz came in and immediately halted the bleeding, but the Yankees were leading 4-3, and that was your final score.

I wasn’t expecting a sweep of the Yankees, but this game was definitely winnable, so I’m disappointed and I’m going to put a Marina in this post. Here you are:

In happier news related to the Orioles, go to Camden Depot tomorrow morning and check out my cartoon series starting there! They’ll be running every other Sunday starting tomorrow, so give it a look, won’t you? (These are higher effort cartoons than I normally draw for this site, too – lots of work going into these!)

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.

You know how great Chris Davis was last night? Tonight it was Nick Markakis and J.J. Hardy picking up where he left off and driving in runs left and right. Between the two of them, they had five hits on the night. Not too shabby if you ask me, especially since Hardy missed the cycle by a triple.

Everyone played a part, though – Matt Wieters and Adam Jones had two RBIs of their own, and Steve Johnson pitched a heck of a game, only giving up a two-run homer in the first inning and settling down significantly after that (he pitched six innings total). The Blue Jays were stymied after that by Johnson and Luis Ayala – so much so, in fact, that the Orioles were able to close out the game using Kevin Gregg (who struck out the side – what even). That’s an accomplishment for the Orioles.

Basically, the Orioles did everything right tonight. It’s against a team riddled with injuries, so we can’t look at this and go, “WOW OMG THE ORIOLES ARE TEH BESTEST SO GOOD,” but we can acknowledge that at the very least they’ve pulled themselves together and don’t lose to struggling teams anymore. Remember, last year the Jays would have been trouncing the Orioles.

This is this year.

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.