Are you sick of this year's Topps Orioles team set yet? My general boycott of new Topps products admittedly hampers variety when I want to feature current players. Anyhow, I'm a week late with this, but I just have to comment on the Birds' doubleheader sweep of the Indians two Sundays ago. As you may recall, the O's took the regularly scheduled afternoon game by a 4-0 score, with the rejuvenated Ubaldo Jimenez tossing a bullpen-preserving eight innings of four-hit, NO-walk, seven-strikeout ball. Brian Matusz and Chaz Roe made things interesting with a pair of walks in the ninth, but combined to get those ever-challenging final three outs. In the nightcap, a makeup of Saturday's rainout, Chris Tillman nearly matched Ubaldo's pitching line with seven innings, four hits, zero walks, and six whiffs. T. J. McFarland somehow kept Cleveland off the board for the last two innings despite allowing four hits of his own, and the Orioles cruised to an 8-0 victory. So not only did the O's win both ends of the twinbill, but they did so without giving up a single run. The last time the club blanked the opposition in both games of a doubleheader was September 6, 1974, when Dave McNally and Mike Cuellar each flummoxed...the Indians. And of course,
I had just written about those two games (and the larger shutout streak surrounding them) two days before this latest turn of events. It's all very serendipitous.
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