It’s been a weird year for the Orioles. Last year, they got off to that good start and equally bad collapse. This year, they’ve been pretty mediocre. They’re ten games below .500 and that’s in one of the toughest divisions in baseball. They have flashes of looking like a solid team at times, but they just don’t win. This weekend series sort of highlights this.
On Friday, the Orioles were cruising. Eric Bedard had a very nice start and then rookie Chris Britton had a solid eighth inning. The Orioles took a two run lead into the ninth inning and the normally reliable Chris Ray came in to finish off the White Sox. Obviously, the Sox aren’t the defending champs for nothing. They loaded the bases on Ray and then Ross Gload took Ray deep for a grand slam. It was only the second blown save of the season for Ray and in the process, his ERA shot up nearly a full point.
Yesterday’s game was just as bizarre. The White Sox jumped out to an 8-3 lead after three and then it was 10-4 after four. The Orioles didn’t give up though and they put up eleven runs on nineteen hits in total. Jim Johnson had a flat out ugly line in his first career start and Russ Ortiz didn’t fare much better. Miguel Tejada hit his nineteenth homerun and he both drove in three and scored three. Melvin Mora had three hits and three runs and Nick Markasis had four hits and two runs.
Today’s game was wild and crazy as well. Baltimore scored three in the sixth to take a 5-4 lead, then they added a run in the seventh to pad their lead. Then Jermaine Dye took Todd Williams deep for a three run shot in the eighth and just like that, the White Sox had the lead back. The Orioles had only won two games when down heading into the ninth, but they made it number three today. Jeff Conine and Javy Lopez both had RBI singles, and the one by Lopez was of the walk off variety. Jay Gibbons had four hits, including a solo homerun.
The Orioles are way out of the race for both the Wild Card and AL East, but as of right now, Miguel Tejada is still an Oriole. If I had to guess, he goes to the Angels but as always, we’ll see. It’s time to start thinking about next year.
