Baltimore Orioles: Happy to be Home Again

The Baltimore Orioles put together a total team effort to defeat the red-hot White Sox 10-2 in the first of a four-game set at Camden Yards.

It was a classic 2016 Orioles win: a sufficient start, a lock-down bullpen, and an offence that eventually bludgeons the opposition.

The O’s certainly enhanced their second-best on-base percentage number in the American League, coming in with a team number of .322 that trailed only the Sox of the other color. The Birds pounded out 15 hits and walked four times as well. Every starter got on base during the game, and only Caleb Joseph failed to get at least one hit.

Having advocated here on The Baltimore Wire for Tyler Wilson to be a part of the rotation, it was gratifying and encouraging to see so many positives in the approach of the former UVA hurler. He certainly made a bad pitch in the first inning to Todd Frazier and paid for it by giving up a two-run homer. But Wilson pulled himself together after that and made one quality pitch after another. Never overpowering, he does know how to mix his pitches, all of which have good movement.

Wilson was unfortunately unable to get the final out of the fifth inning and was therefore not the winning pitcher. In the not-too-distant future he will be allowed to go with a higher pitch count in that sort of situation. Two back-to-back 10-pitch at-bats were his undoing … though each had borderline pitches go against him that might otherwise have ended the inning.

But all in all, there is reason to believe that the Orioles truly have something in Wilson as a middle-to-late rotation piece who could be a regular every fifth day for some time to come.

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Turning to the bullpen, it was another scoreless night for the #2-ranked pen in the American League. The Orioles came into the game with a relief pitching ERA of 1.80, trailing the White Sox who were at 1.32.  However, the O’s scored three earned runs off the Chicago bullpen, while their own relievers added an additional 4.1 scoreless innings. By my math, the Sox now have a bullpen ERA of 1.68 and the O’s are at 1.70.

The Baltimore relief contingent of Mychal Givens, Dylan Bundy and T.J. McFarland did yield six base hits, but they stranded all runners. Givens was particularly short of the nasty stuff and velocity sometimes seen, but he ended both innings he pitched with critical strikeouts. This is becoming a pattern with him, which is evidence of his maturity as a pitcher.

And finally, the power returned home with the Orioles. After Manny Machado tied the game with a double into the right field corner that plated Joey Rickard, Chris Davis hit the next pitch out of the park. In two pitches, the entire game changed. Five pitches later, Mark Trumbo sent one out of the park. Machado later added a slam that indeed slammed the door on the first-place White Sox.

Joe Danks was not very good on this evening. Good pitching can seriously slow down the Orioles, but anything short of that is going to get hit pretty hard. The separating factor for the O’s this season will be whatever ability they muster to beat the better pitchers they will see.

Here is an updated chart on prorated home runs and strikeouts (actually at this point, nine teams in the AL have more strikeouts than Baltimore, though some of them have played one or two more games) …

In an unrelated note, I saw where former Orioles minor league pitcher Andrew Triggs made his debut for the A’s against the Tigers a couple of days ago, pitching a hitless inning with one strikeout. Left unprotected in the offseason, he was claimed by Oakland. And I believe the Orioles will live to regret that decision.