The O’s looked more like the April/May version of themselves in losing two of three to the AL’s second-worst team.
Good morning, Camden Chatters.
Sigh. Just when you were starting to feel a tiny glimmer of hope about the Orioles, they go and do something like lose a series to the second-worst team in the AL.
The Birds’ first ever trip to Sacramento, on the heels of a six-game win streak, didn’t go exactly as planned. The Orioles took two rough losses to the previously 24-40 Athletics, including a particularly sloppy rubber game yesterday that featured some awful O’s defense, an offense that couldn’t produce in the clutch, and a rare Tomoyuki Sugano clunker. Alex Church recapped the Birds’ all-around failure.
Let’s look on the bright side. The Orioles finished their road trip through Seattle and Sacramento with a successful 4-2 record, even if most of the wins didn’t come against the team you’d expect. And the O’s are clearly playing a better caliber of baseball recently than they have for most of the season, yesterday’s game notwithstanding.
Still, if the Orioles have any designs on making a miraculous return to contention, there are a lot of things they need to clean up. Their offense needs to improve against left-handed pitching, for one. They shouldn’t be letting dudes like A’s starter Jacob Lopez (who had a 7.20 ERA entering the game) and journeyman reliever Sean Newcomb shut them down, but those two combined for seven innings of one-run ball yesterday. The O’s also need to start capitalizing with runners in scoring position. They were 0-for-8 with RISP yesterday and are batting just .208 in such situations this season.
The early hole in which the O’s buried themselves this year leaves almost no margin for error. They’re going to need to rack up a lot of series victories for the rest of the season to stay relevant in the playoff picture. So it stings to lose a winnable series against a bad team, especially when the Orioles’ next opponent is the best team in baseball, the Tigers, who have already swept the O’s once this year.
A poor performance by the Birds this upcoming week could undo the progress they’d seemed to be making and further bury them at the bottom of the AL East standings. And I, for one, am just not ready for that yet.
Links
Baltimore Orioles: Athletics take 2 of 3 during weekend series – The Baltimore Banner
As Andy Kostka writes, the Orioles have a league-worst .559 OPS against southpaws. At what point will opponents just starting calling up random lefties from the minors every time they play the Birds?
Should Orioles try a 6-man rotation? | MAILBAG – BaltimoreBaseball.com
For most of the season the Orioles could barely cobble together five competent starters and now we’re thinking about six? What a world.
Four more questions relating to Orioles before they return home – School of Roch
Roch Kubatko wonders how the O’s will make roster room for all their players returning from the IL. I’d say that Emmanuel Rivera, to name one, didn’t make an especially strong case yesterday for sticking around.
Orioles birthdays and history
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Just one O’s player in history has a birthday today: 2018 outfielder John Andreoli, who turns 35.
On this date in 1960, the Orioles signed local boy Tom Phoebus as an amateur free agent. The Baltimore-born Mount St. Joseph alum went on to pitch six years for his hometown team, tossing a no-hitter in 1968.
And on this day in 1990, O’s first baseman Randy Milligan crushed three home runs in a 10-1 blowout of the Yankees in Baltimore. Milligan hit all of his dingers by the fourth inning, including a three-run shot in a six-run Orioles first. He came up in the seventh with a chance at a four-homer game, but drew a walk.
Random Orioles game of the day
On June 9, 1965, the Orioles lost in 10 innings to the Washington Senators, 3-2, at Memorial Stadium. In a pitcher’s duel between the Orioles’ Milt Pappas and Washington’s Howie Koplitz, the O’s tied the game in the bottom of the ninth on Jerry Adair’s RBI single, only for the Senators to go back in front on Jim King’s 10th-inning homer off reliever Stu Miller. Leadoff man Russ Snyder had three hits but the rest of the O’s lineup couldn’t drive him home.