The Real Baltimore Orioles Return to Baseball
After a horrendous series in Houston, the real Baltimore Orioles returned to the field on Friday evening to defeat the Cleveland Indians 6-4.
If there was ever any doubt that Buck Showalter is a genius, last night proved it with Adam Jones being put into the leadoff spot. Very few Orioles fans (who are honest) when seeing the posted lineup before the game were saying, “Excellent. This is just what we need – Adam Jones hitting leadoff!”
Why would anyone think that Jones belongs at the top of the order? He was hitting .223 with an OBP of .282! He has not done it since 2010, and his career numbers in 21 starts are a .240 average with an OBP of .284. But Jones led off the game with a hit and went 3-for-5.
Manny Machado came back into his body from wherever he has been lately and cracked four base hits. And Jonathan Schoop got a critical two-out hit in the bottom of the first inning to drive in two runs, showing the sort of hitting that has been entirely missing of late. And finally, Mark Trumbo’s home run proved to be the difference.
What a difference a day makes. This new Orioles team looked more like the one we saw opening week of the season – not swinging wildly at pitches and making the pitcher come to them.
Beyond that, the defense returned. Particularly making nice plays were the middle infielders, as Buck commented after the game, “The middle guys on the diamond made great plays on both sides of the ball.”
The win moves the Orioles back to within a game of first-place Boston, who lost to the Jays 7-5. The victory was also the first in the career of Dylan Bundy. There will be more.
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So what made the big difference for the Orioles just 24 hours after setting a MLB strikeout record? Were the O’s simply that bad in Houston, or were the Astros pitchers simply that good? The answer is probably a mix of both. Having made the playoffs last year, and in spite of the poor start on this 2016 season, there is no doubt that the Astros are a pretty good baseball team. It will be interesting to see if they put together some fine games and streaks over the next couple of weeks.
Now the question will be to see which offense shows up for game two of the series. And beyond that, it will also be interesting to see which Ubaldo takes to the mound – the good one or the bad one.