The new streak lives after the O’s guaranteed a series split with yesterday’s win
Hello, friends.
The Orioles! They’re doing good things again. Let’s hope that they don’t duplicate their Toronto series effort, where they won the first two games and then lost the last two. They’ve got the winning the first two part down here against the Rays, adding another win on Saturday afternoon. What had been a close game was blown open late to give the O’s a comfortable 5-0 win. At 41-22, the O’s are on pace for a 105-win season.
Check out Alex Church’s recap of the game for more of the lovely totals. Among the things that offer cause for comfort, Kyle Bradish looked great while allowing just one hit over six innings. He struck out nine Rays batters and ended his afternoon on the mound retiring 18 straight guys. That’s dominance, and hopefully it’s the kind that should calm anyone’s concerns after he struggled in his previous outing.
In addition to that, while picking up the win on Saturday, the Orioles got home runs from Ryan O’Hearn and Gunnar Henderson. The homer hit by Henderson, along with being his 20th of the season, was the 100th hit by an Orioles player this year. The O’s are the first team to reach the 100 homer mark. Entering Saturday’s play, only the Yankees had more than 82 homers as a team. In a year where homers are down, the Orioles are cashing in anyway – and the weather’s not even at its hottest yet.
Saturday’s win also guaranteed a split in the series, thus continuing the O’s streak of AL East series without a loss. They’re now 14-0-7 in the last 21 series against division opponents, with the possibility of this series changing from the split to the win column the next two days. That’s some good performance against the division spanning the last 66 games.
The series continues with a 1:40 start time this afternoon. Grayson Rodriguez is set to make the start for the Orioles, looking to start a pattern following a nice game against the Jays where he only allowed one earned run in 6.2 innings. The Rays are sending Zack Littell to the mound. The 28-year-old righty allowed 11 hits in six innings when the O’s played the Rays in Baltimore, though they were scattered enough that he only gave up three runs and the Rays ended up winning that one.
For the scoreboard watchers out there, you’ll have to wait until Sunday Night Baseball to find out whether the Dodgers can help out the O’s and beat the Yankees. They put a good drubbing on the Yankees last night, allowing the Orioles to gain a game in the standings and pull to 2.5 games back for the division lead. The starting pitchers expected for that one are Tyler Glasnow for LA, and Luis Gil for NY.
Around the blogO’sphere
Notes on Kremer, Hays, Mullins, and others (School of Roch)
Manager Brandon Hyde weighed in on the goings-on with several players before yesterday’s game. About Dean Kremer, the current plan is “throw another side with him in the next few days and take it from there.”
‘We’re really proud of him’: Adley Rutschman hitting stride from right side (Orioles.com)
Rutschman has been steadily improving as a righty batter since reaching the MLB level. It’s fun to see from the switch hitter.
Analyzing the 12 newest top 100 prospects, including Cade Povich (Baseball America)
The long-running prospect-oriented publication got Povich onto a midseason top 100 update just in time for his MLB debut.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
There is one lone former Oriole who was born on this day. Happy 34th to 2018 outfielder John Andreoli.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: Russian emperor Peter the Great (1672), composer Cole Porter (1891), guitarist Les Paul (1915), basketball coach and broadcaster Dick Vitale (1939), actor Michael J. Fox (1961), and actress Mae Whitman (1988).
On this day in history…
In 53, the roman emperor Nero married Claudia Octavia, the daughter of the previous emperor and also a stepsister to Nero. Exactly fifteen years later, Nero committed suicide, bringing an end to the Julio-Claudian dynasty that ruled the early Roman Empire.
In 747, a Persian general, Abu Muslim Khorasani, launched a rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate, which three years later resulted in the Umayyad being replaced with Khorasani’s Abbasid dynasty.
In 1973, Secretariat was the winning horse in the Belmont Stakes with a record time that he still holds, making him the winner of horse racing’s Triple Crown. There were two more Triple Crown winners in the 70s, then a drought that stretched from 1978 to 2015.
**
And that’s the way it is in Birdland on June 9. Have a safe Sunday. Go O’s!