Right from the start, something seemed off about today's O's game. There was the rare "businessman's special" start time of 12:35, and the fact that Josh Stinson (claimed on waivers from Oakland three weeks ago) was given the spot start, when it had been presumed for days that Zach Britton would get the call from Norfolk. Things only got weirder once the game was underway. Stinson breezed through five and two-thirds innings on 76 pitches, as long as you ignore the fact that four of the five hits he allowed were home runs. Said homers put the Orioles in a 5-2 hole, as the home team went hitless from the second inning through the sixth. Naturally it was Ryan Flaherty, now batting an even .100, who broke through with a run-scoring double in the seventh. A few more timely hits followed, with Manny Machado's triple to the right-center field gap tying the game. But Toronto's bullpen didn't break, stranding Manny at third and turning aside Baltimore scoring opportunities in both the ninth and tenth innings. It was especially unusual to see Chris Davis go 0-for-5 with three strikeouts after powering the offense through much of April. Then came the fateful 11th.
Jim Johnson, with a spotless ERA in 2013, got two quick outs before giving up a pair of unimpressive singles. Time to bear down and...whoops, he nailed Brett Lawrie on the arm with a pitch. Bases loaded, but that left it up to Maicer Izturis, brother of Cesar and owner of a lifetime OPS+ of 92. Jim threw four straight balls, none especially close to the strike zone, to force in the go-ahead run. Brian Matusz was called upon to strand three more runners; he's 24-for-24 in stranding inherited runners since moving to the bullpen last year. But the horse was out of the barn. The bottom of the O's order went down 1-2-3 in their final at-bats, and it was a 6-5 final. Goodbye, 17-game extra-innings win streak. Goodbye to my personal 10-game winning streak as a Camden Yards spectator. It took some freaky stuff to make it happen...
But still not as freaky as Cal Ripken posing for a photo in an Orioles jersey with no number on the front AND no dot above the "i". What's that about?
3 comments:
I'm loving these obscure sets of cards like today's and yesterday's. Any idea what the story behind this set is?
Pete - As near as I can tell, there was a magazine called Investor's Journal in the early 1990s. It sounds like one of the more blatant attempts to profit on that era's card collecting boom period. They included trading cards in each month's issue, and that's where this one came from.
On another note, I've noticed some new stop-motion animations on the Oriole Park scoreboard this season. Are you responsible for those, or did the O's do ya wrong?
Those are mine, made in my own garage! There will be at least one more new one this season...
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