Baltimore Orioles: A Game to Quickly Forget
Aug 18, 2015; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Orioles outfielder Gerardo Parra (18) high fives third base coach Bobby Dickerson (11) after hitting a home run in the sixth inning against the New York Mets at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports
The Baltimore Orioles bounced back nicely from being no-hit in Seattle last week to take four straight from the Oakland A’s. But on Tuesday night they ran into another of the top arms in baseball in the person of the Mets’ Jacob deGrom … and deGrom from Deland (Florida) was deMan, and dat is daTruth.
Final score: Mets 5, Orioles 3.
The Mets’ hurler threw 7.2 very good innings and only gave up a solo home run to Gerardo Parra among five hits. The guy has great stuff, and there is no shame in losing to deGrom. He has now thrown 154 innings for this season and has an ERA of 1.98. And his WHIP is 0.890 … and that is pretty amazing and overpowering for a starter.
The Bad Stuff
- The Orioles really do so often get shut down by strong pitching (and sometimes by previously-unseen pitchers). This is a problem for a team wanting to win at the highest level. They will need to beat the best to be the best, as they did against the Tigers in the playoffs last year. But the lack of runs against top starters puts the pressure on the O’s starters to be pretty much perfect in order to have a chance to win.
- Jonathan Schoop will particularly want to apply the title of this article and quickly forget the game. He had two errors — one of them particularly costly in the ninth inning that could have held the score to 3-1 at the time, rather than setting up a 5-1 deficit going to the final half inning. He also dropped a relay throw on a run-scoring double (not an error officially) and struck out twice. Players will have games like this once in a while, and Schoop had one Tuesday night.
- Chris Davis simply couldn’t catch up to deGrom’s fastballs and struck out three times. But he was far from the only Oriole who struggled.
The Good Stuff
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- Parra is looking to be a great fit for the ballpark in Baltimore. He is hitting over .400 in his short time with the O’s, including three home runs. The right field porch and flag court may especially fit his game, though he is not a power hitter by definition. Hopefully he is seeing this, enjoying being in Baltimore, and considering a longer stay after this year.
- J. Hardy got a hit and a walk! Let’s take it and go into our happy dance!
- Though the Mets got three runs off Kevin Gausman, including two Curtis Granderson homers, you can see the velocity and ball movement that is going to make him a force in the game. No more messing with him; from this time forward he is a member of the rotation. And I think that is going to pay off sooner than later.
- The Orioles came back in the ninth inning to get two runs and bring the winning run to the plate. This is the sort of thing we used to see over and over from the top teams that regularly beat the crap out of the Birds … especially the Yankees. Even when the Orioles won, the Yankees always threatened in the ninth inning and made the occasional win feel like a Houdini moment rather than a true victory.
- Matt Wieters did not seem to have any lingering issues from his hamstring and was the only Orioles hitter to get two hits.
Game forgotten … move on to the finale with the Mets and attempt to win one against them after nine straight losses (ugh, that’s embarrassing!). The O’s are facing another tough pitcher and need to run up some early pitch counts and get into the bullpen.