The Orioles Went Into New York And Took 3 Out Of 4 From The Super Team Known As The Yankees
That was a great weekend of baseball, just all-around fun games between the Yankees and Orioles. Baltimore came in on a 5-game losing streak, and pretty much everyone assumed the O’s would steal a game or just get swept. After all, the Yankees won the championship if February, and according to Hubbs, “this team should never lose to the O’s“. So naturally the Orioles come in and take 3 of 4 from the Yankees. Andrew Cashner had a great outing on Thursday night en route to a 5-2 win, then Friday night we had the marathon 14 inning game that ended with a Pedro Alvarez grand slam. Saturday’s game was a rough one for the Orioles as they lost 8-3. Chris Tillman had a decent outing going, but quickly lost hold of the game and gave up 5 ER in 5.1 IP. That game was a wash, but yesterday’s game was straight out of the 2012 Orioles playbook.
Mike “Screw This Game” Wright didn’t make it out of the first inning. Wright had a pretty good first outing against Houston, but was god awful on Sunday. How awful was he? He tried to fight a wall.
Wright’s line reads 0.2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 2 ER, 1 walk, 1 K, and an error. Shoutout Mike Wright. That game should have been a cakewalk for the Yankees, they had a 5-0 lead and the Orioles bullpen on the hook for the rest of the game. The O’s didn’t roll over and fold like Brian Dozier would want them to, they fought back for the 8-7 win in 12 innings, their second extra inning win of the series, and third extra inning win of the year already. The Orioles were down 5-2 in the 5th when Danny Valencia narrowed the gap with a 2-run bomb, his first of the year, off Jordan Montgomery. In the bottom half of the inning, the most clutch hitter my eyes have ever seen, Austin Romine singled in a run to make it 6-4. Manny Machado answered back with an RBI single, and advanced to second on a Giancarlo Stanton error, not the best series for Stanton.
Rule-5 pick, Anthony Santander launched his first career homer over the right field wall for a 2-run homer in the 7th and put the O’s on top for the first time all-day. I know that the Yankees bullpen is good, but they were not up to the challenge this weekend, that 14 inning game did them no favors at all. The Santander homer was the 6th HR of the season they have given up, most in the majors. NOT GOOD! Romine singled in another run to tie the game at 7 in the 8th off of Darren O’Day. The Orioles bullpen had a pretty good showing this weekend, but they’ve also given up a run in every game this season.
Fast forward to extra innings, Craig Gentry drives in Pedro Alvarez on a 3-2 count in the top of the 12th with 2 outs to score the go-ahead run. Gentry had quote a game too, as he made a great game-saving catch in extras. Brad Brach now in for the save. Right out of the gate, Brach was off. He walked the first 2 batters of the inning and then couldn’t field Brett Gardner’s bunt attempt. Bases loaded, no outs for Aaron judge, no big deal. A ball in the air to the outfield ties the game, and a hit to the gap wins it. Brach couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat, but somehow turned a fantastic double play. As you see above, Judge hits a dribbler back to the mound, Brach feeds it to Caleb Joseph, Joseph steps on home plate and fires it to third base to get the runner for 2 outs. An unreal quick reaction by Joseph, who didn’t even look at first base to get Judge. He knew he was going to third to prevent that runner from moving up. Such a heads up play. 8-7 Orioles win the series, they take 3 out of 4 after inly winning 2 games in New York all of last year. Not a bad way to start out their first road division series.
Stanton was up next and struck out to get to 0-7 on the day, something he did 5 times yesterday, and 8 times in total over the series. We saw Stanton go 2-19 with 8 ks in these 4 games, he just looks so lost right now. Swinging at everything low and away in the zone. I also saw something that I never thought I’d see. The Orioles intentionally walked Aaron Judge to get to Stanton. The guy almost hit 60 bombs last year and they intentionally walked Judge to get to him?!?! And it worked, that is the crazy part. I know Stanton will go on a streak where he hits 15 bombs in a month, but man I’m glad to see he, Sanchez, and Judge all slump at the same time against the O’s.
A lot of the credit goes to the bullpen for this series win. They accounted for 27 innings over the 4 game series, giving up 17 hits and 7 runs. Not an easy task to hold down this lineup, regardless of is Stanton, Judge, and Gary Sanchez are all slumping, all it takes is one hit to get them rolling, and none of them felt comfortable in this series. Rule-5 reliever, Pedro Araujo, who hasn’t pitched above A ball gave up 1 hit in 4.1 IP in the series with 6 Ks and only 1 walk. Huge steps for this kid who I wanted to fight after the Astros series. He stepped up in a big way. Richard Bleier was another guy who stepped up, mainly on Sunday. He appeared in each of the last 3 games for the Birds, threw 72 pitches, didn’t allow a run, let up 4 hits, 2 walks, and a strikeout. Numbers don’t look like much, but he was huge in his 3 inning relief appearance yesterday and earned the win. He also had this great quote after the game that made me want to run through a wall for him. Brach had shaky appearances, but was able to get the job done when it mattered. The Orioles had no business winning that game yesterday, but they didn’t die and came back. Hell of a game and a series, entertaining baseball all around.
They started this 7 game road trip 0-3, but go home looking at a 3-4 roady, I can easily take that. They’re 4-6 and head home for 3 games against Toronto before heading out on the road again. Blue Jays have played pretty well so far, better than people thought, and are 6-4. Solid pitching match ups all around too, Dylan Bundy vs J.A. Happ today, Andrew Cashner vs Aaron Sanchez, and Kevin Gausman vs Marcus Estrada. What do you say you take 2 of 3 from Toronto, eh?
PS. As you were reading this, Giancarlo Stanton just struck out again.