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!)

Aaaaah, look at us go!

Zach Britton was clearly today’s star of the game – he struck out ten batters over his seven innings, only allowing a run in the first. The Orioles backed him up with offense right away, and the game basically was on cruise control after that. (The White Sox tacked on two runs in the ninth off of Pedro Strop, but Jim Johnson came in and fixed the problem quickly.)

Not much to say here that hasn’t been said before, but the fact that if we sweep the Yankees this weekend we’re tied for first place is one of the most incredible things I’ve heard in my entire life. It’s one of those things I never would have imagined to even be possible back in February, and yet here we are, vying for the AL East title. It’s really something magical.

Oh, and apparently Mark Reynolds turned into the Bob’s Furniture claymation guy.

Chris Davis is the reason we’re in the win column tonight.

I’d give Zach Britton some credit, too, but to be fair he kept getting pretty darn lucky. He did go seven innings without imploding and he didn’t give up any runs, but he kept escaping close calls with the help of the defense. A bunch of double plays were turned behind him tonight, and the Tigers were stupid enough to try to run on Matt Wieters.

Chris Davis hitting that three-run homer in the seventh inning was absolutely huge. He not only crushed the ball, but also put Britton out in front – and Britton held onto the lead in the bottom of the inning. Pedro Strop had a less-than-stellar outing and gave up two runs, but not the lead, and Jim Johnson was able to close things out. It was a typical Orioles win this season – barely enough offense, but a strong enough pitching performance that we were able to eke it out.

Oh, but check this out!

That is absolutely INSANE. That’s an incredible statistic. I’m amazed that it’s held up for the entire season so far. If that manages to last for the next 42 games, I’ll be astounded.

It’s a Saturday and I’m a nerd, so I’m going to watch documentaries on time travel now. For once, I’m not interested in going back and restarting the baseball season because we’re playing like crap – and that’s a good thing.

Hold on, did we just beat the Yankees? We did, we did!

It kind of sucks because nobody was paying attention when we beat them. Everyone was watching the Olympics and complaining about how badly NBC is doing at broadcasting them. There’s a lot of things I could complain about there, to be honest, but that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is to gloat about beating a team that I frankly wasn’t sure we’d be able to beat given our current state. Go us!

How’d we do it?

This guy helped quite a bit. (Screencap by me some time ago.)

Miguel Gonzalez went a solid 6 2/3 innings tonight. He didn’t walk anyone, struck out eight, and, although he did give up all four runs (and a balk in the second inning), ensured that he kept the Orioles in the game the entire time, leaving with the good guys leading by one. Darren O’Day, Pedro Strop and Jim Johnson covered him after that, making sure nobody else crossed the plate, and we actually got a victory against the team leading the division!

On the offensive side, Nick Markakis drove in two of the Orioles’ five runs tonight, which is always good news for someone who’s recently come off the DL – he had three hits on the evening. Wilson Betemit also homered, which was quite nice, and Omar Quintanilla and Mark Reynolds also had a hand in us scoring runs. We scored five runs in total, which for us lately is quite a bit.

Actually, we’ve scored quite a bit as of late. This could be a turning point for us. If we’re able to win this series, it might just give us the confidence we need to pick ourselves back up fully and go on a run.

Oh. Well, then. I’m not so thrilled with this being the first game to come back to.

Jason Hammel pitched three innings and gave up only two runs, but he unfortunately left the game early due to a knee injury of some sort – one which Gameday would not tell me more about (MLB.TV and the radio both wouldn’t work until the 8th inning for me for some reason). Unfortunately, that led to our bullpen coming into play and not doing as well as it normally does, with Ayala and Eveland combining to give up five runs over the fourth and fifth innings. The rest of the bullpen came in to get work in this game – when I say the rest of the bullpen, I mean it, because Gregg, Patton, Lindstrom and Strop each got an inning of work, and the four of them did absolutely fine. Even Gregg. Yep.

On the offense front, we really were still useless, which only solidifies the fact that we need help in that department when we’re buying in a week or two. We had six hits total in this game. That’s really not very many, you know. Somehow, we scored two runs in there, but the issue remains – this team doesn’t have good offense. If they win, it’s because their offense absolutely explodes, but a good offense is a consistent offense and this offense is the most fickle one I can remember.

I really can’t find a better way to sum up tonight than this screencap I took from Gameday:

Yep. Right. Let’s just try again tomorrow.

Um. Yeah. This is another one of those games that makes you question why you stayed up all night watching it.

I’ll tell you why – it wasn’t Jason Hammel giving the team yet another quality start (albeit one in which he gave up three runs over his 6.2 innings). It wasn’t the bullpen pitching solidly, with Pedro Strop and Dana Eveland keeping the Angels off the board for the remainder of the game. It wasn’t Jered Weaver throwing eight shutout innings for the Angels.

No, tonight was the Major League debut of a very special prospect.

Screencap by me.

Welcome to the big leagues, Joe Mahoney! I’ve been waiting a long time to see you at this level, and although you didn’t get your first hit tonight I still like you better at first base than a lot of other people I’ve seen there. You’re alright, kiddo!

I don’t particularly like how we played tonight, especially on the basepaths – we made some crucial errors that I’m not very proud of, especially Jim Thome trying to go to second on a ball that he couldn’t and getting thrown out. We also only had three hits the entire game, which does not make me happy. Add in one walk and we had a total of four baserunners the entire game (and only twenty-nine at-bats, two more than the minimum requirement in a ballgame). The fact of the matter is that this offense is very hit or miss, and although I think the Orioles might actually be buyers at the trade deadline for the first time in a long while this year, I really don’t know if they’ll be able to fully address this need, especially since starting pitching is another major issue and that seems to get more of the attention because when this team loses it has a tendency to lose spectacularly.

We have one game left before the All-Star Break. I’d love to split this series, but I know I’m kind of stretching it with that hope there. I’m just thrilled we still have a winning record at this point.

This one hurts to write about, believe me. I know it was a win, but it still hurts. Wei-Yin Chen was throwing a perfect game for quite some time there. The only damper on his day was a solo shot by Casper Wells. The offense even looked good for a while, stringing together four consecutive hits at one point and driving in four runs in the sixth. By the time Chen left the game in the eighth inning, the score was 4-1, and all looked swell.

Then Pedro Strop came in and performed a very accurate portrayal of Oliver Perez’s time with the Mets, recording one out but giving up three more runs. Darren O’Day came in to do some damage control, but the game was tied and things were looking bleak.

But there was a hero in our midst tonight. As I listened to this song…

…Robert Andino stepped to the plate and delivered, absolutely demolishing a pitch from Charlie Furbush and sending it into the stratosphere. Er, left field. Right. Either way, it left the ballpark, and the Orioles took a 5-4 lead. Jim Johnson came in and saved the game, and everything was okay, at least for that one moment in time. We could breathe again. The Orioles actually fought back in a bleak situation. That hasn’t happened in a long time.

It was nice to see the team pick up Pedro Strop on one of his off nights, to be honest. Although his pitching brought back my horrible case of Post-Traumatic Mets Disorder*, Andino both covered for Strop and made up for his error last night. My only regret right now is that Chen wasn’t able to get the win after that brilliant show he put on earlier in the game.

At least after all of this we got a win. Oh, and there’s this:

…wow. That’s really all I can say. Just…wow. That’s impressive.

*Post-Traumatic Mets Disorder is a sad condition. Sufferers watched the Mets play in the late 1990s and early 2000s and remember Armando Benitez’s pitching. They then were subjected to Oliver Perez’s pitching later in the decade, furthering their trauma.

It’s not much offense, but I’ll take it!

It was the bottom of the eighth when we actually got the offense – Matt Wieters homered with Adam Jones on first, and the Orioles turned an 0-1 deficit into a 2-1 lead.

It helped that we got Good Arrieta today, too – he went six innings, and although he struggled through the first three innings, he only gave up one run in the third. I guess we actually got Decent Arrieta, but ‘decent’ is more good than bad.

The bullpen backed Arrieta up with three scoreless (with Strop getting the win), too. I love them so much this year. They’re incredible.

Tomorrow we have an off-day. If someone could go and cast a Hitting Spell on the team during that time, that would be wonderful. Thank you!

One hundred games left in the season. That’s actually really sad to think about because now the season’s going to go by even faster and we’ll be depressed. I guess I should stop counting.

Every so often, I get to use this.

Today Good Arrieta pitched, so I get to post this for the first time in a while. Arrieta wasn’t even supposed to pitch tonight, but Brian Matusz bunted a ball into his own face and was pushed back until Friday (he’s okay, but that’s a classic Players Steph Likes Injury). It turned out for the best for once – Arrieta went seven innings and only gave up one run, rising to the occasion after spending a total of two days in the bullpen. Patton and Strop each pitched a scoreless inning (with Strop making a great play at third base in the ninth).

Offensively, the team totally came together again, putting up seven runs overall (the only innings they didn’t score in were the third, the fifth and the eighth). Wilson Betemit in particular had a heck of a game, with three hits, two runs scored and three RBI (including a massive homer out to right field). J.J. Hardy matched him in number of hits, but he didn’t pad his stats as much as Betemit did tonight.

Basically, tonight was good. Now we can’t have less than a series split, too. I’m enjoying this very much. (Oh, and the Rays lost – thanks, Mets! – so we’ve got second place all to ourselves! Everyone root for Atlanta so we can be tied for first!)