Baltimore Orioles: Fenway in the Rear-View Mirror

Sep 10, 2014; Boston, MA, USA; Baltimore Orioles pitcher Wei-Yin Chen (16) delivers a pitch during the first inning against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports

The Baltimore Orioles have put Fenway Park in the rear-view mirror for another season. Good riddance! Fenway is cute and quaint in a baseball history sort of way, but being a player there and dealing with cramped quarters, etc. is a hassle. Glad to see the O’s done with it for another year. Orioles 10, Red Sox 6 – but it wasn’t that close.

the Red Sox themselves are in the rear … the same location from whence they are a pain!

And if Fenway Park is in the rear-view mirror, the Red Sox themselves are in the rear … the same location from whence they are a pain!

And to the Sox, speaking of mirrors, find one and get a shave and stop looking like relatives of Chewbacca!

The Orioles have flat-out owned the Sox the past three years – the same team that somehow won it all in 2013, but came into this series already eliminated and mired in the basement where they belong (as in 2012).

The Birds are 10-6 against the Sox this year, 7-3 in Boston. In 2013 it was 11-8 (5-4), and in 2012 it was 13-5 (7-2). Put all of that together and you have a three-year record of 34-19 (19-9 at Fenway). To put that into other terms, if extended this over the number of games in the regular season, it would be like finishing with a record of 104-58. Just sayin.

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There are three more games this year against the Red Sox—at home next weekend. That may well be about the time the AL East title is clinched. Some may see it as happening earlier than that, though there are two teams to eliminate, not just the Yankees. So I think it likely to stretch that long, but maybe not.

Like many of you reading this, I was at work today and could only check the score occasionally through MLB Gameday and Twitter feeds. Wei-Yin Chen had to be good to go through the first 16 hitters without a runner until yielding a double to Daniel Butler in the bottom of the sixth inning. Xander Bogaerts hit a leadoff homer in the seventh. This was followed by a David Ortiz double, though he would be stranded there.

Chen was reasonably pitch efficient, but Showalter pulled him after seven innings and 93 pitches – a good move. He is now 15-4.

Ryan Webb had a good eighth inning, but Joe Saunders got touched for five runs in the ninth, so I think we can conclude that this experiment did not work. I didn’t think it would, though it is difficult to criticize too many Dan Duquette moves here lately.

The Orioles rang up six runs in the third inning, where they sent 11 batters to the plate. Ryan Flaherty had two hits in the same inning; Jonathan Schoop had two outs in the inning. Is one thing good and one thing bad? Nope. I’ll take any inning, any day, any game where one of my guys makes two outs in the same inning! The worst thing that can happen in that event is scoring four runs!