Don’t stay up late to watch a Kyle Gibson start if you don’t have to.
For one night at least, the Orioles made us feel a little bit better about them, even if they were also in the process trying to make us continue to feel worse. Or at least that’s what it felt like watching their hitting with runners in scoring position, and also watching Yennier Cano try to protect the small lead in the eighth inning. But it worked out and they won.
Can they do two in a row? It would only be the third time all year that they’ve done this, a fact that I still find unbelievable even though I’m well-acquainted with how bad the team has been. The cliche from the Earl Weaver quote book is that momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher. Here we are with Kyle Gibson and his 14.09 ERA coming up to try to keep the good time rolling on another day. Yeah, it’s a small sample size of two starts, but gosh, what a bad small sample size.
Last night, Tomoyuki Sugano showed the way to carve through this Angels lineup. We’ll see if fellow rotation old guy Gibson is up to the task. I am not going to get my hopes up.
Orioles lineup
- Jackson Holliday – 2B
- Adley Rutschman – C
- Gunnar Henderson – DH
- Ryan Mountcastle – 1B
- Ryan O’Hearn – RF
- Cedric Mullins – CF
- Heston Kjerstad – LF
- Emmanuel Rivera – 3B
- Jorge Mateo – SS
Before the season started, I was thinking Holliday would end up as the leadoff guy, and here he is. We’ll see if that’s intended to be a more regular plan or not. Probably depends on how he does.
Things could get weird with this defensive alignment. O’Hearn and Kjerstad as the corner guys is, uh, potentially not good. Mountcastle as the cleanup hitter remains a bit of a puzzler, unfortunately because he’s stunk for a while now.
This lineup also has three lefties batting right in a row (O’Hearn, Mullins, Kjerstad), which the Orioles would usually rather die than do! Perhaps they are confident in even this horrible-against-lefties team facing the potential Angels bullpen lefties. I am not sure that they should be confident. More likely, Ramón Laureano is going to enter later in the game anyway so at no point will the O’s actually bat three straight lefties against a potential lefty reliever.
Angels lineup
- Zach Neto – SS
- Nolan Schanuel – 1B
- Yoán Moncada – 3B
- Taylor Ward – DH
- Logan O’Hoppe – C
- Luis Rengifo – 2B
- Jo Adell – RF
- Kyren Paris – CF
- Matthew Lugo – LF
The Angels starting pitcher is Jack Kochanowicz, who brings a 5.79 ERA into this game. He is not left-handed. One would hope this portends good things with the Orioles offense, but who knows with these guys lately. And even if the offense does well, who knows what’s going to happen with Gibson.