These games are starting to feel easy like Sunday morning
By Brian Pinter
The Baltimore Orioles and Sunday afternoon games have started to play nicely with each other again.
When the Baltimore Orioles play on Sundays, usually it’s with their “B-and-a-half” lineup. Typically you’ll see the backup catcher and one or two reserve players from the bench. Normally, Sundays are getaway days.
It may sound silly, but the Orioles haven’t always been a successful team when they play on Sunday. Including last season, the Orioles have finished four games over .500 just three times since 2007 in Sunday afternoon games.
Since 2007, the Orioles have finished 8-17, 4-21, 10-16, 11-15, 10-16, 15-10, 15-11, 13-13, 14-13 and 16-9 when playing on Sundays. That’s a combined record of 116-141 over the past ten seasons.
Their worst year for Sunday baseball was 2008. After winning their first Sunday game against the Seattle Mariners, the club went on to lose the next 15-in-a-row, including two walk-off defeats.
Since their return to the postseason, the Baltimore Orioles have seen their play on Sunday improve slightly.
As you can see, the Orioles have improved on Sundays since 2012, and have played better in front of the Sunday crowd. Sunday games only make up roughly 16% of the baseball season, but it’s always good to win as many as possible.
The years the team made it to the postseason, they finished 15-10, 13-13, and 16-9 respectively. The years they missed the postseason, 15-11, and 14-13. There’s no direct correlation between poor/excellent Sunday play and postseason appearances.
You just shouldn’t do it.
The Baltimore Orioles will try to get in the win column for the first time on Sunday this year.
The Orioles finish up their four-game set in Toronto today, and Dylan Bundy will be on the mound. Given that today is Easter Sunday, it can now also be called, “Easter Bunday.”
See, this is why I don’t make jokes.
By the way, I just added “Bunday” to my personal dictionary so I might use that one again this season. I’m sure somebody out there already beat me to that one, but hey if the boot fits.
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Bundy has started this season by posting back-to-back quality starts, even though he took his first loss on Tuesday. That came against the Boston Red Sox when he allowed three earned runs on seven hits through 6.1 innings. Bundy has pitched 13.1 innings in two starts, and has allowed just four earned runs (a 2.70 ERA).
He’ll be opposing the Toronto Blue Jays again, looking to duplicate his success from game two of the 2017 season. On April 5, Bundy pitched seven innings, allowed just one earned run, and struck out eight Jays batters, missing tieing his career high by one.
If the Orioles win today, they will hang on to the best record in all of baseball and will have improved to 8-3 in the American League East. A victory today, and the O’s would have taken down the Blue Jays for the fifth time in six games, and seventh time in eight regular season games.
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Right now, we all want picking up a win today to be as easy as Sunday morning.
And begin singing now.