Baltimore Orioles Bend but Don’t Break
The Baltimore Orioles prevailed over the Seattle Mariners Wednesday evening 5-2 in a game of runners left on base without scoring.
This was a game where the box score looks a lot better for the Orioles than the game on the field did to the eye. Starting pitcher Chris Tillman only gave up two runs and four hits in 6.1 innings. And the O’s bullpen duo of Brad Brach and Zach Britton did not yield any more scores.
But the Orioles had to deal with a lot of base runners in scoring position all evening long. And it was long and tedious. Though Baltimore pitching only allowed seven hits, four of them were for extra bases. And the Mariners worked four walks as well.
At the end of the night, the Mariners were 1-for-12 in situations with runners in scoring position. The Birds looked like a scoring machine by comparison, going 2-for-9.
The Orioles were fourth-best with RISP coming into the game last night, having an average of .294, slightly trailing Boston, Texas and St. Louis. On the other hand, Seattle ranked 24th at .234, with the two New York teams as dead last – the Yankees at .216 and Mets at .208. So the Mariners did nothing to improve their frustrations with scoring opportunities.
Helping the O’s have some efficiency was the back-to-back combination of Mark Trumbo and Matt Wieters. Not only did they hit homers one after another, the duo accounted for a total of five of the Orioles’ eight base hits. Wieters hit a pair of doubles.
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So Tillman gets the win to improve to 6-1 with a 2.61 ERA, though his stuff was not as sharp as some other recent outings. But compared to last year, it is categorically improved due to throwing multiple pitches well.
So at this moment the Orioles (24-14) actually have the second-best record in all of baseball, trailing only the Chicago Cubs. An odd situation is that the Phillies are only a half-game behind the Nationals, having a 24-17 record. What is unique about this is that they have had 28 more runs scored against them than they have put on the board. By comparison, the Orioles are at a +30 (and the Cubs at +107).