Baltimore Orioles, Ubaldo Jimenez sunk by 6th inning rally

It’s tough to say why Ubaldo Jimenez fell apart with two outs in the sixth inning for the Baltimore Orioles last night. To that point, Jimenez had allowed two runs and was cruising along in the game. However Kansas City is a team that thrives with two down. They take it almost as if it’s their pride and joy. And on this night at least, it certainly spoiled things for the O’s.

Courtesy of John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

That sixth inning – or the last third of it at least – cost the Orioles the game. It also ruined an otherwise strong starting outing. Jimenez’s line: 5.2 IP, 10 H, 7 R, 1 BB, 3 K. It was almost a tale of two games for both Jimenez and the Orioles. The Birds gave Jimenez an early 2-0 lead as Adam Jones smacked a two-run homer on the first inning. Eric Hosmer‘s fielder’s choice-RBI in the third cut the lead to 2-1, however Steve Clevenger‘s RBI-double in the fourth put the Birds back to a two-run lead.

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But the O’s were unable to hold that lead, as Jimenez came unraveled with two down in the aforementioned sixth inning. Mike Moustakas tied the score at three with a two-run homer, which in theory gave us a “new game.” Later in the inning with two on, Omar Infante‘s two-RBI triple would give Kansas City the lead – and on top of that, Jonathan Schoop‘s errant throw allowed Infante to score which gave Kansas City a 6-3 lead. Lorenzo Cain would close out the scoring in the inning and the game with a two-RBI single.

It’s really tough to pin point what’s going on with this Oriole team right now. MASN’s Gary Thorne and Mike Bordick made an interesting point in reference to Kansas City during the game last night. In effect, if you play the game with confidence you’re going to do well. (That might be a point upon which we expound a bit moving forward.) In a certain sense, I agree with that. Kansas City is playing with an immense amount of confidence right now. However for whatever reason, the same can’t be said about the O’s.

I would submit that there’s a very fine line between having confidence and bordering on arrogance. In monitoring my twitter feed during the game, a lot of Orioles fans seem to resent the manner in which the Kansas City fans behave in terms of how excited they get. And that reputation might be well-deserved to a certain degree. However is it that very arrogance that lifts their team to victory? And could it not be argued that perhaps the lack of that arrogance or confidence is part of what’s ailing the Orioles right now?

This is tough to say one way or the other. I would tend to think that there’s something to be said for both winning AND winning the right way. And while Kansas City has had their moments where they’ve seemingly rubbed things in their opponents’ faces, that wasn’t the case tonight – at least not in my view. Nevertheless, they do play the game with a certain looseness; and the Orioles do not. One might argue that it’s the absence of that looseness that makes Jimenez hang a fastball high in the zone to Moustakas, or that makes Schoop tighten up on a throw and commit and error which scored a run.

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