Baltimore Orioles: And Here Comes Boston

May 29, 2016; Cleveland, OH, USA; Baltimore Orioles left fielder Hyun Soo Kim (25) hits a home run during the seventh inning against the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports /

The Baltimore Orioles finished an unusual road trip with a “grind it out” win over the Indians 6-4 in true team fashion.

The win gave the O’s a 4-5 record on the strange trip to Anaheim, Houston and Cleveland. That is at least minimally acceptable, since such trips can (and have in the past) been disastrous. The Birds ran into some new bad boys particularly in Houston, but now the familiar old bad boys come to town in the week ahead.

The Orioles only tallied a total of eight base hits on Sunday afternoon against the Indians, one each by every starter in the lineup other than leadoff hitter Adam Jones. And Jones got on base twice with walks. Yep, you read that correctly. How often has that ever happened? He is 4-for-11 with two walks in his three games as the number one hitter in the order, striking out only once. I have to confess that I would have never once considered this as workable.

Chris Tillman has been the best starter for the Orioles, and he gave up only four hits in six innings, though three were home runs. Neither his best nor worst outing, he got the Birds through two-thirds of the game with no long-relief options available other than today’s starter Tyler Wilson.

The bullpen of “BOB” (Brach, O’Day, Britton) had plenty of bend … to the brink of breaking, but they held on to give three scoreless innings.

The first three runs were driven home in classic Orioles fashion, Mark Trumbo drilling a bases-loaded triple off the left-field wall. But run number four came in a manufactured way uncommon to Baltimore. With Jonathan Schoop at second base, Nolan Reimold advanced him with a sacrifice fly, with Ryan Flaherty driving him home by the same.

And the big blows were home runs by Hyun Soo Kim and Reimold. The former broke the 4-4 tie and was the eventual game winner. And any insurance run was big on this day. Just play these guys most days and be done with it!

Now the focus turns to the AL East, with four games with Boston and three with the Yankees. With the way the Red Sox are playing, if the Orioles want to win this division, it may be up to themselves to make the difference by handling business themselves.

The Orioles have had good success against the Red Sox in recent years. So far this year it is 2-1. In previous three seasons, each year the record was 11-8. In 2012, it was 13-5. Add all of that together and it is 48-30 (.615). The percentage will win every year, except 2016 in NL Central with the Cubs.