No history for Chris Davis. I’m going to go and pout now.
I’m also pouting because the Orioles had plenty of chances to win this game and they blew them, and in the end, they managed to blow a hold, as well. Normally Jim Johnson’s a solid fellow, but he’s allowed to lose once in a while. I’ve had an exhausting day, though, so I’m still a little sore about it because I could’ve used a win.
I think this game basically deserves the very first one of these of the year:
Once again, grad school has gotten in the way of my life as a baseball fan. Here is a very succinct recap of yesterday’s affair with everything you need to know:
Please resume normal activities now and have a photo of my dogs watching the Mets.
Congrats, Jim Johnson!
If you told me in February that the 150th game of the season would end with Jim Johnson’s 46th save, I would’ve been skeptical. He’s really grown as a reliever over the past few seasons, sure, but I didn’t think the team would give him that many leads.
Tonight, Jim Johnson set a club record for saves in a season by notching number 46 after the Orioles beat Jon Lester for the very first time (they lost to him the previous 21 times they’d faced him). Basically, tonight was a groundbreaking evening.
The sad bit is that the Yankees won, too, so we don’t get to be tied for first place again after this exciting evening. However, we have taken the top spot in the Wild Card since Oakland lost – to the Yankees, naturally, since all these things have to be interdependent on each other to make things extra-stressful this time of year. It’s almost become a sort of dance at this point – everything these three teams do is going to affect how their postseasons begin and likely how they end, as well. The two that face each other in the one-game playoff get a roster reset after the playoff is over and then have to proceed into the ALDS, whilst the division-winning one doesn’t have to stress over that extra game.
Oakland might not even be team number three, depending on whether or not they can catch the Rangers. They’re 4.5 games out with less than fifteen to play, but they still have seven games left against the Rangers – three at home and four away.
But let’s talk about the Orioles for a moment here and look at their remaining schedule versus the Yankees’ schedule. The Orioles have two more games at Fenway before returning home, where they take on Toronto for four games (including the make-up doubleheader), get a day off, and then play the Red Sox again for three more games. They then finish up in Tampa Bay for three games. It’s a softer schedule, really, since we know the Orioles can handle these teams just fine. The Yankees still have two games left against Oakland, which is a big deal. They then face the Twins and the Blue Jays, who aren’t big deals, before finishing their regular season at home against Boston. The Red Sox are going to want to play spoiler, so that’s also a big deal.
It’s really coming down to who has the most hunger at this point. This is getting pretty darn tense.
Well, at least they gave it a go.
To be fair, I was really hoping that this would be a win because the Yankees had lost earlier in the day, but since the Yankees didn’t win the pressure was off to win this one. Well, except for the Wild Card business, but the Orioles and Yankees being tied means nothing changes there, either.
Xavier Avery tried to steal second base with two outs in the ninth in this one. He gets a ‘you tried’ star because he was thrown out. I’m not sure if the team was going for a hit and run here or not, but whatever happened clearly failed because that was how the game ended. Not exactly the best way to lose, but eh.
To be fair, this was a very close game – these teams are pretty evenly matched, which says to me that if they hypothetically meet up in the postseason there’ll be some fierce competition to be had. I’d really love to see the Orioles win tomorrow and Sunday, but this was the series I was most worried about that was left on the calendar, so I’m not going to get my hopes up. At least after this we get the Mariners, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Red Sox again. That’s a much gentler schedule to end the month before we see the Rays for the last three regular season games.
The Yankees will also see Toronto and Oakland after this weekend (during which they’re playing the Rays), but they’ll also see Minnesota (easy) and Boston. They’re finishing the season against Boston. I’m willing to bet the Red Sox would love playing spoiler to their biggest rivals. I’m kind of actually liking this all of a sudden.
I think we all deserve some sleep now, so everyone go and do that. We’ll meet back here at 9 pm tomorrow for game two.
Thanks for bailing us out again, man. (Image from Wikipedia.)
Well, look at these kids all of a sudden! They just came back to win a ballgame!
It started out like pretty much any other Orioles game during this rough stretch – one little blip of scoring early (a Mark Reynolds solo shot in the first inning), and that was it for a very long time. In the meantime, the Twins answered with two runs in the first inning and added a third run on later, so things looked like, well, they usually do.
Then the Orioles managed to take advantage of a Twins error in the seventh inning and pushed across a run. In the eighth, Mark Reynolds came through again with a clutch single that drove in two more runs, making the score 4-3 in favor of the visitors from Baltimore. That was the final score. This team actually came back and won a baseball game.
They couldn’t have done so, however, if Wei-Yin Chen hadn’t pitched seven solid innings. Possibly inspired by Tommy Hunter’s start last night, Chen gutted out a strong start of his own, keeping the Orioles in the game and allowing their comeback to occur. Without Chen’s effort, this team wouldn’t have been able to win this afternoon, which should stand as a reminder just how important starting pitching really is when it comes to winning ballgames.
A series split should be the first step in the right direction for this team, though. Now that they’ve been reminded that they can win, they need to go out and actually do that. There are certainly still issues that need to be addressed (ahem, offense), but the team can still win as they are. They’re actually in contention for the AL Wild Card right now, something I never would have dreamed of even a year ago. Just because they can win as they are, however, shouldn’t be a reason to not fix things that need to be fixed, and with the trade deadline looming in a couple of weeks we’re running out of time to patch the issues and make repairs.
Off to Cleveland for now! Let’s try winning a series this time.
Well, we haven’t done that in a while, now, have we?
I mean, we actually won and had good starting pitching. That actually happened. I’m having trouble believing this, but it happened.
Tommy Hunter returned from the dead Norfolk and gave the Orioles seven solid innings (and got one out in the eighth), only allowing one run on the night. Of course, that run came on a solo homer, because pretty much every single run Tommy Hunter allows involves giving up home runs. After Hunter left the game, Troy Patton struggled his way through the remaining two outs in the eighth, but he survived without giving up a run, and Jim Johnson locked things down quickly in the ninth. And we won. It actually happened. It’s very strange to think about, but this team won a ballgame.
Adam Jones provided all of the offense needed on the night with a two-run homer in the first inning. Although this team had more opportunities to score (including that same Mr. Jones finding himself on third base with a leadoff triple), they were unsuccessful, which brings me to my usual rant about how this offense is inconsistent. Good pitching, however, can nullify the other team’s offense completely, which is what happened tonight, which allowed us to actually land in the win column for once.
Since I haven’t celebrated a win in a while, here’s Louise:
Celebrate!
One more in Minnesota and then we go to Cleveland before we get to return home. To be honest, I’m glad we’re not on the East Coast right now because the humidity is insane here. I’m in New Jersey and it’s sweltering – I can only imagine how bad it must be further south.
I was sick last night from heat exhaustion. The Orioles were sick last night from starting pitching.
Zach Britton made his season debut, and although everyone was excited to see him back he struggled once he hit the fifth inning, which is really just following the trend of pitchers not being able to put together quality starts lately. Poor Luis Ayala had to come in to mop things up and ended up being tagged with the loss when he allowed two runs to score a few innings later in the seventh.
At least Adam Jones had a three-run homer in there. It’s nice to know that somebody’s functioning lately.
This is what we call a funk or a slump, of course, and I think this team differs from Orioles teams of the past two or three years because they’ll be able to put things together again. It’s like kids learning to spell, actually. They’ll make errors at the beginning, but over time they’ll remember how things go and spell them correctly.
Or they’ll be adults who do this, but I’m hoping for the former.
Hawaiin pizza? What’s that? I know what a Hawaiian pizza is, but…
This is all you really need to know:
Not even the two-run homer from Endy Chavez in the 9th could make this game worth it. At least we scored runs, though.
Chris Tillman gave up seven runs in the first inning. That’s worth a Marina and a half.
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!)
