Orioles Win Makes AL Wild Card Very Tight Race

As you know there are two wild card teams this season. You also know that after the Orioles dropped out of position for that 2nd wild card, they have won 3 straight. Well guess what? Now they have won 4! Because of the win, the wild card race is a tight one.

The Baltimore Orioles moved to 50-44 with the victory. It tied them for the 2nd spot and moved them only a 1/2 game back of the 1st wild card. The Angels hold the 1st wild card. They just dropped a game to Texas and are 51-44. The Chicago White Sox looked like they were going to win the central, but they just lost 4 straight and the Tigers won 4 straight. Therefore, the White Sox are 50-44 as well. Chicago dropped out of 1st and into a tie with Baltimore, etc. Finally, the red hot A's are also 50-44.
Here are the wild card standings
Los Angeles 51-44
Baltimore 50-44
Chicago 50-44
Oakland 50-44

The Orioles also are now only 7 games behind New York after this winning streak. We can only hope that the streak continues.

What is one reason for the streak? Ryan Flaherty suddenly decided to play some baseball. The Rule 5 pick hit his 4th home run tonight. In the process, Flaherty  improved his average to .200. It will be interesting to see how long Flaherty can keep this up.

Another reason for the success is the starting pitching. Orioles starters registered their 4th straight quality start last night. This one was registered by Chris Tillman. If you remember, Tillman didn't get out of the 1st inning in his last outing. However, this time, Tillman only gave up 1 run in 6 2/3 to improve to 2-1. Despite Tillman's struggles last time, his ERA sits at 1.15, that is because of poor defense behind him in the previous 2 starts. The O's amazingly had no defensive struggles last night. In his next outing, Tillman will again try to deliver a 2nd straight victory for the first time in his career.

The bullpen was also impressive. Strop picked up his 16th hold after pitching a scoreless 8th. This lowered Strop's ERA to 1.47. Then Jim Johnson picked up his 29th save! Johnson now has an ERA of 2.38. The back end of the Orioles' bullpen is as good as anybody. Strop and Johnson are filthy.

There were other heroes with the bat, too many to name. I will say that Jim Thome hit another massive home run. Thome now has 2 Oriole homers and we are hoping for many more. Nick Markakis had 2 hits also raising his average to .273. #21 is doing quite well in the leadoff spot.

In roster news, Steve Pearce was the roster casualty to make room for Omar Quintanilla. Pearce was designated for assignment prior to yesterday's game. This move gives the Orioles three middle infielders, but considering Chris Davis has been playing LF, it was more likely that Tolleson would get at bats than Pearce. Pearce was DFA and the Orioles now will see if he clears waivers. It would be cool if he can stay in the organization, because then they may be able to move him later. Welcome aboard, Omar!

-Noland

Orioles Finally Beat CJ Wilson

The Orioles faced CJ Wilson not to long ago and did not have the same fate. Last night, the O's got the best of Wilson in a 3-2 victory. The only runs came off of an incredibly surprising home run by Steve Pearce. That homer was Pearce's 3rd of the year and gave Steve a very clutch at bat. 3 run homers have been very rare for the Orioles, who are the kings of the solo shot. Great job by Pearce on that one.

Luckily the O's had a competent starter on the bump for them to combat Wilson. This starter was the main reason behind the Orioles victory. Miguel Gonzalez made his 1st major league start (he had made relief appearances previously) and got his 1st win. Gonzo threw 100 pitches in the process. He went 7 strong giving up only 1 run the entire time. The youngster also had 6 strikeouts. Gonzalez was one of the best Oriole pickups lately as he was signed out of the Mexican League. Get us more international pitchers. Two of our best guys didn't start their careers in the US. I think we found our fifth starter once Britton gets up or if we make a trade. If Gonzalez pitches like this, there is no need to see Matusz or Arrieta again this season barring an injury.

For the Angels, they had 2 home runs, but they were both solo shots. Mark Trumbo hit the 1st home run of the season against Gonzalez and his 21st of the season. That guy has been mashing. Mike Trout has been equally impressive, and he hit his 11th home run of the season against Darren O' Day. Trout is hitting a ridiculous .347. The kid is the real deal.

The rest of the O's offense was pretty awful once again. Adam Jones went 2-4 and is batting .295, but not much else is happening for the birds.

Luckily, they still have Jim Johnson, who now has 26 saves. Jim Johnson may be the most valuable Oriole right now. This guy is just filthy.

-Noland

Orioles Shut Out Braves For 2nd Straight Day

For the first time since August of 2010 the Orioles have posted back to back shut outs. You got to love quality pitching from the Orioles. The Orioles beat the Braves 2-0 due to the shutout. Tonight's brilliant pitcher was Wei Yin Chen. He went seven scoreless for the victory tonight. Chen lowered his ERA to 3.36 and picked up win #7 in the process. He now joins Hammel in the 7 win club, in fact they are the 1st Orioles teammates to record 7 wins by this point in the season since 1999. In 1999 Mussina had 8 wins at this point and wait for it...Sidney Ponson had 7 wins.

Obviously, since Chen pitched only 7 innings there were others involved in the shut out. One of those pitchers was Darren O'Day, who did not even record an out. That has got to be an interesting piece of history. The bullpen's effort was led by Jim Johnson who picked up his 20th save of the season. No way Johnson doesn't get an all-star appearance. He lowered his ERA to 1.21. The other bullpen stud also came through as Pedro Strop lowered his ERA to 1.42 and picked up his 12th hold. One other pitcher was involved in the shutout and his name was Troy Patton. Patton's ERA now sits at 3.45 as he pitched 2/3 of the 8th. Strop retired the only batter he faced.

Brian Roberts had the day off for the offense as they were pretty stagnant today. They did manage to get two runs today though. The offense was paced by Steve Pearce and Adam Jones who each scored a run. Even without Markakis and Reimold, the offense is being carried by the outfield. This Jones guy might be an all-star.

-Noland

Hammel Throws 1 Hitter Against Braves

Can the Orioles move to the National League? After destroying the Pirates in a sweep and running the NL starter with the best ERA out of the game yesterday I think it may be the way to go. Oh ya and Jason Hammel went through the Braves lineup like it was nothing.

Jason Hammel threw a complete game 1 hit shutout. Amazing. Before I go on, I need to give Dan Duquette mad props on the trade that brought in Hammel. I was not a believer in this trade at first, because I loved Guthrie, but man was it brilliant. We got two stud pitchers for a pitcher that is struggling currently. Great job Duquette. During the spectacular performance, Hammel had 8 strikeouts and lowered his ERA to 2.87. He is now 7-2 and that performance may have earned him an all-star spot. It sure will be exciting to see the Orioles with multiple all-stars this season.

While Hammel was the big star he wasn't the only star. The bats were working too as the Orioles won 5-0. It was a bit of an overreach to say the Orioles ran Beachy out of the game, because he was hurt. However, they did get a run off of him and raise his ERA to 2.00. Following Beachy's removal, the O's made the Braves bullpen look horrible. The offense was lead by somebody you might not expect either. The new and improved Brian Roberts went 2-4 with 3 RBIs. An awesome effort from Brian who raised his batting average to .318. If BROB is hitting like that, this team is going to be difficult to stop. Steve Pearce was also 2-4 in the win.

Feel free to check out my new superhero blog I am starting in a couple minutes. The site should be up and running within the hour. It can be found at superheroscoop.blogspot.com.

-Noland

Orioles Beat Bedard, Sweep Buccos

Do you remember when the Orioles traded Erik Bedard? Steve Phillips thought the Mariners were going to win the World Series because of the deal. Some of my friends thought it was a bad trade for the Orioles. Well, the proof is in the pudding ladies and gentlemen. Just Adam Jones would have been a win for the Orioles. Consider what else we got for Bedard though. We got George Sherrill, who was a filthy closer for us for 2 seasons, Kam Mickolio who was a power arm that helped us land Reynolds (I didn't like the Reynolds trade), Chris Tillman, who was their #2 prospect at the time and still is still in the system, and Tony Butler who was another top 10 prospect of theirs at the time. Andy McPhail straight took the Mariners to the cleaners with that trade. Huge trade for us which is a big part of us contending right now.

Anyways, last night Bedard gave up 7 runs in just over 3 innings. Whoops, poor Erik. He just didn't have it last night.

The Oriole hitting was on point last night luckily, because their pitching wasn't to great either. Baltimore won 12-6 behind some brilliant performances by a few people. They had 8 doubles in the game. That is amazing. JJ Hardy, Chris Davis, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters (2x), Mark Reynolds (2x), and Steve Pearce. Reynolds and Pearce also went yard in the game. Mark Reynolds had by far his best game with that performance. Overall, Reynolds went 4-5 with 3 extra base hits. He also had 2 RBIs and scored 3 times. Great game by Reynolds. Steve Pearce hit his first Oriole homerun with his blast. Pearce and Wieters both had 5 RBIs in the victory. What a fantastic offensive display. In your Brian Roberts update, you find out that he went 1-5 and scored a run. This team loves having BROB around. You can definitely tell. Right now they also love having Pearce and even Reynolds. Its a good time to be an Orioles fan.

-Noland

Orioles Beat Pirates

Before I get into the Orioles beating the Pirates in back to back games, I want to say that I will get to Matt Cain's perfect game at some point today. It may be part of the all-star post, if Cain makes my NL Squad for pitchers. However, as always the Orioles come first here at RAN.

Brian Matusz was injured from the batting cage incident the other day, so he had to have his start moved back a day. That change called for a new starter last night. Therefore, Jake Arrieta who was working on normal rest was re-inserted into the starting rotation after being moved to the bullpen following his last start. Based on how he was pitching lately, we should have expected disaster. We actually got brilliance for Arrieta though. Arrieta got a quality start as he went 7 innings and only gave up one run. The performance also got Arrieta a win and raised his record to (3-8). His ERA is still an awful 5.89, but he did earn another start. Hopefully, this is the start of a big change for Jake.

Pedro Strop also pitched well in this one. Strop pitched a scoreless ninth for the birds. That lowered Strop's ERA to 1.44. You might see Strop on my list of all-stars later today as well.

Brian Roberts went hitless in the 7-1 victory, but his average is still .333. JJ Hardy was 3-4 with 3 runs scored. Chris Davis was 3-4 with 3 RBIs. Davis also hit his 12th home run of the season and is now hitting .305. If 1st base in the AL wasn't so stacked, Davis would have a real shot at the all-star game. He may make it still. New OF Steve Pearce was 2-4 with an RBI. Pearce is hitting .286 since joining the Orioles. Not to shabby, Steve. Finally, the star of the night offensively was Wilson Betemit. He was 3-3 with 3 RBIs. Betemit also had his 8th home run of the season. Some may not like what Wilson provides and may liken him to Vlad, but Wilson has provided solid production for the Orioles. Are there other players I would rather have? Of course, but Wilson gets the job done.

-Noland

Johnson Blows Save, but Orioles Still Win

Jim Johnson picked up the win in the 10th inning after blowing the save in the 9th and the Orioles defeated the Red Sox 8-6 on extras last night. It says a lot about Jim Johnson that he asked for the ball in the 10th after blowing the lead. He shut down the Sox in the 10th and helped preserve the victory.

The rest of the pitching was pretty darn good. Jason Hammel gave the Orioles five innings, which could be better, but during those 5 innings he only gave up 1 earned run. With the Orioles struggles in the rotation lately, it would be hard to believe Hammel's ERA. Hammel is pitching to a 2.97 ERA this season. If the Orioles are in 1st place at the break, then Hammel stands a pretty good shot at making the All-Star team after pitching like he has. This guy has to be near or maybe even at the top of the list for pleasant surprises this season. Unbelievable.

Ayala and Strop did their thing combining for 1 2/3 of scoreless baseball. Strop earned his 10th hold and Ayala his 6th. I continue to be amazed that we got Strop for Mike Gonzalez. Pedro Strop may just be the best pitcher we have on the roster.

Obviously, with an 8-6 victory you would expect to hear more about the hitting than the pitching though. The Orioles bats were on point last night. Every Oriole except Steve Tolleson that played last night got a hit. That included Ryan Flaherty who only got one at bat. Why Tolleson is playing over Flaherty is beyond me. Flaherty can actually contribute to this team's future and if we are going to keep him on the roster with so many people out, we might as well let him play. The way Tolleson is playing we might as well.

The top hitter last night may come as a surprise. Endy Chavez went 3-5 in the game with an RBI and 2 runs scored. New OF Steve Pearce was 1-3 with 2 RBIs. Pearce also had a high quality defensive play off the green monster that drew rave reviews from the coaching staff.

Robert Andino, Matt Wieters, and JJ Hardy had two hits apiece. Andino scored twice and leadoff for the Orioles. Wieters in Hardy each drove in a run and Wieters scored. Matt Wieters hit a double and JJ Hardy hit a triple. These were the only extra base hits on the night. Let's hope the O's get more timely hits tonight against the BoSox.

-Noland