I listened to as much of today’s ballgame as I could manage from my desk at work. When it was over, and I had finished checking my vitals to ensure that I had not, as originally feared, worried myself to death, I got to thinking… Was this the most Orioles victory ever? Consider…

 

Underwhelming Starting Pitching

Yovani Gallardo was… um… “not sharp” in this game. He began his outing with four consecutive singles, and gave up three runs in the first inning. He threw 96 pitches through five innings, and ended his day allowing seven hits and  five earned runs. I’ll leave it to others do debate how significant his velocity was, but he boasted a “Reagan Era” fastball (mid 80s) for all but his last pitch – a 89mph called strike.

I thought Gallardo was OK in his first start, but needed to go deeper – this staff can’t afford another five-inning wonder. At this point, we’re dealing in Small Sample Size, but today’s start did nothing to improve on his first impression. Gallardo was fortunate. I don’t want to have to depend of good fortune. I’m an Orioles fan – I am well aware that good fortune can take a 15-year sabbatical.

Six games in, only Ubaldo Jimenez has pitched seven innings. The starters need to start adding length, or the bullpen is going to be too burned out to bail them out. Speaking of which…

 

Bullpen to the Rescue

Sure, it wasn’t perfect. T.J. McFarland came in to relieve Gallardo, and promptly gave up a lead. And there was the little business of 9th inning heart palpitations. But aside from that, the Orioles put in a formulaic win: get the starter out of there with as little damage as possible, and give the competent pitchers (in this case, Brach, Givens,  and Britton) a chance to close down the win. Let’s just hope the bullpen isn’t asked to cover four innings every night.

 

All the Offense

Scott and I have joked that this team is going to win a lot of games 8-6, and lose a lot of games 6-5.  Game #6 was a prime example. Whereas it is surprising that the O’s put up five runs on David Price, it’s not hard to look at this lineup and think “you’re right, I could really go for a chalupa right now.”

There were two Earl Weaver Specials, including a home run off the bat of Mark Trumbo, who had previously had put on an impressive singles display. The other tripdong came from the Orioles’ $162MM man. It’s nice to get good early returns on that deal. Davis also blooped a single to drive in a pair of runs.

One other note from today’s offensive performance: 15 strikeouts. They faced one of the best in the business, in Price, but he only accounted for half of them. It seems silly to nitpick about strikeouts when the team bashed its way to victory, but it was another example of a day in which the Orioles were a caricature of their reputation.

 

O’s beat the Red Sox…

The game that ended the Dark Period was a Game 162 victory over the Red Sox in 2011. Since 2011, the Orioles have had Boston’s number. In fact, they are 55-39 against the Sox since the start of the 2011 season. Not only did the Orioles beat the Red Sox, but they did it to play spoiler at Boston’s home opener.

Nothing about a resurgent Orioles franchise makes me happier than watching my team wiping the grins off a fan base that tortured me in my own stadium for a decade and a half.

The Orioles hot start may mean nothing, and those who are quick t dismiss the O’s bring up the unimpressive strength of schedule they have enjoyed to start the 2016 campaign. Perhaps racking up wins against Boston will build a case. If not, it’s still fun to watch.

 

…And almost blew it

But it is never easy. In a game where the Orioles overcame spotting Price three runs, and put themselves comfortably ahead with a dramatic, late-inning homer, we were still left to sweat it out in the ninth. Zach Britton gave up a homer, a single, issued a wild pitch, and a walk, just so he could face the greatest player to have ever graced a baseball diamond (just ask him, he’ll tell you), David Ortiz.

At this point, I was convinced that karma was punishing me for some past transgression, and that this, the most painful of ways to lose, would be the game’s storybook ending.

Fortunately for me, enough of the rest of you have been living right – Ortiz did not play the hero, and Britton hung on for a rocky save.

 

 

 

Really, is there a more Orioles win than this? This game checked all the boxes, including ending with the Orioles in the win column for the sixth consecutive time. It wasn’t pretty, but I’ll take it.