Baltimore Orioles – Monday Morning Baseball in Boston
Apr 20, 2014; Boston, MA, USA; Members of the Baltimore Orioles pay tribute to the Boston Marathon bombing one year anniversary as part of pre game ceremonies in a game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports
After a devastating loss in Boston on national TV on Sunday evening, the Baltimore Orioles will need to be up early for a rare Monday morning game against the Red Sox. Here is a quick preview of what is a very important game for the Orioles to win.
The Birds will be facing a historically difficult character in Clay Buchholz. Though he is off to a rather poor start over his first three games of 2014, his lifelong record against the Baltimore Orioles is outstanding at 9-3 with a 3.40 ERA in 16 games. His MLB career record is 58-34 with a 3.64 ERA, and three of the four complete games in his career were against the O’s.
Not surprisingly, few Baltimore Orioles hitters have good career numbers against Buchholz. One who does in J.J. Hardy, though he went out of Sunday evening’s game with a tweaked hamstring injury and will not likely be playing. Nelson Cruz is 4-for-10 with a homer. Adam Jones and Chris Davis have a pair of home runs off him, though their average against is .222 and .278. Nick Markakis is only 5-for-37 … not many pitchers have that sort of dominance over the Orioles’ right fielder.
AB |
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
BB
SO
BA
Nick Markakis
37
5
0
0
0
2
6
5
.135
Adam Jones
27
6
3
0
2
10
2
3
.222
Matt Wieters30
6
2
0
0
1
4
4
.200
Chris Davis
18
5
1
0
2
2
3
6
.278
J.J. Hardy
19
7
0
0
2
3
1
5
.368
Ryan Flaherty11
3
0
0
0
0
0
3
.273
Nelson Cruz
10
4
0
0
1
2
1
1
.400
Delmon Young9
1
0
0
0
2
0
2
.111
Jonathon Schoop
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
.000
On the other hand, the Orioles will send out Wei-Yin Chen and hope for the best in this critical contest. After two rough starts to begin the 2014 season, Chen threw a good 6.1 innings against Tampa Bay while giving up only one run.
Chen’s numbers against the Red Sox over his eight starts are not very good at all. He is 2-3 with an ERA of 5.24 … and Boston is batting .349 against him.
The news just gets worse when looking at the individual matchups. Dustin Pedroia is 11-for-22 and Daniel Nava is 6-for-11. Mike Napoli is only 3-for-13, but those hits are a double and two homers.
This is not encouraging, but it is baseball and anything can and will happen.
AB |
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
BB
SO
BA
Dustin Pedroia
22
11
4
1
0
4
2
1
.500
Jonny Gomes17
4
0
0
1
1
2
6
.235
Will Middlebrooks19
8
2
0
0
0
0
4
.421
David Ortiz13
5
0
0
1
5
1
3
.385
Mike Napoli
13
3
1
0
2
2
1
4
.231
David Ross13
4
1
0
0
3
0
3
.308
Daniel Nava
11
6
0
0
1
3
1
2
.545
A.J. Pierzynski12
3
2
0
0
2
0
4
.250
Jason Bourgeois2
1
0
0
1
1
1
0
.500
Jackie Bradley3
2
0
0
0
1
0
0
.667