Baltimore Orioles are getting hot at just the right time

The Baltimore Orioles are starting to get hot at exactly the moment in the season when one would hope that a team would begin to make a run.

The Baltimore Orioles still have a lot of season left to play, and things could still finish any number of ways. However in the past few days we’ve started to see this Orioles team putting it together fairly well. Granted they’ve been playing teams that are below them in the standings (so one would hope they’d have an advantage), but advancing to the post season is as much about taking care of opponents beneath you in the standings as anything else.

Yovani Gallardo made his way through five innings last night and qualified for the win. Gallardo’s line: 5.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R (1 earned), 1 BB, 5 K. Gallardo put himself and the team in a slight hole early on when Logan Forsythe hit a solo homer in the first inning. But that’s not something that’s going to phase an Orioles team with the power potential of this one. Chris Davis answered the call one inning later with a solo shot of his own, and the game was tied at one.

The Orioles took the lead in the fourth on J.J. Hardy’s two-RBI double, and they never looked back. On Monday the Birds had a big fifth inning, and last night it was a big fourth. Tampa starter Jake Odorizzi seemed to fall apart in that fourth inning, and after a couple of walks he had loaded the bases with the Orioles already leading 3-1. That’s when the game effectively ended…

Manny Machado came to the plate, and smacked a “no-doubter” over the wall in left center field. That gave the Orioles a 7-1 lead, and in essence ended the competitive portion of the game. Ironically Machado would commit a throwing error in the last of the fourth that allowed Tampa to score their second and final run of the game, however that didn’t affect the outcome of the game.

The Orioles would put four more runs on the board before the game was over, including one on a solo homer by Adam Jones. Given where Tampa is in the standings, an 11-2 win is about what one would expect out of the Orioles. By virtue of the fact that New York beat Toronto, the Birds are now one game out of first place (behind Boston and Toronto – who are tied). They’re also in sole possession of the second wild card spot by virtue of Detroit’s loss (also one game out of the first spot).

The sole concern coming out of this game is the fact that Chris Davis left the game in the fifth inning. As we later found out, he’s had soreness in his right hand for most of the season. MASN cameras caught him grimmacing after striking out in the fifth inning. Davis said after the game that he was expecting to play in this afternoon’s series finale. Quite frankly, if I were Buck Showalter I’d sit him (but maybe keep him available as a pinch-hitter if needed). That would give him today and tomorrow off given that the Orioles don’t play tomorrow. But we’ll see how things look when the lineup comes out.

The Orioles have taken advantage of having some other teams lose at the same time they’ve been coming on strong. So again, they’re getting hot at just the right time. I would liken the stretch run to a basketball game in the sense that basketball is a game of runs. Most games are close in the sense that they’re going to come down to the final five minutes or so. Therefore whomever’s run is last ends up winning.

The series this weekend in Detroit is obviously going to be huge for this team, as Detroit’s been nipping at their heels in the wild card race for some time. However the biggest mistake the Orioles could make would be looking past today’s game towards the weekend. The Detroit series may well be the most important series of the season, however you can’t look past any game or any team. What good is winning a series in Detroit if you lose today and at the end of the day you miss the post season by one game?

So on that note the Orioles will go for the series sweep in Tampa this afternoon. Dylan Bundy will be on the mound for the Birds, and he’ll be opposed by Tampa’s Drew Smyly. Game time is set for just after 1 PM this afternoon.