Cal Ripken Jr., 1992 Donruss Gallery of Stars #GS-11

The Orioles' offense sputtered mightily at the end of their just-concluded road trip, as they scored a total of five runs over their last four games in Kansas City and Tampa Bay and lost three of those contests. I guess that all they needed was some home cooking. Tonight the O's used three home runs, 15 hits, and a pair of big innings to clobber the first-place White Sox, 10-2. Manny Machado broke an 0-for-17 skid with a double in the third inning, tying the game and delivering the first of four Baltimore runs in that frame. Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo immediately followed with back-to-back homers, and there was no looking back. Janet and I were in a childbirth prep class during the first half of the game, but we juuuust happened to see the score alerts pop up on her phone throughout the class, don't you know. We made it back to the car in time to hear most of the fifth-inning fireworks, most notably Manny's second career grand slam, the 75th round-tripper of his already-impressive career. The star third baseman has now passed Cal Ripken and has hit more homers prior to his 24th birthday than all but two other O's players: Boog Powell (88) and Eddie Murray (79). Machado's birthday is July 6, so he has 62 games to try and track down that pair of Charm City legends. It should be a blast to watch his best effort.