It took a caddy wampus type of game that got out of control very quickly for the Baltimore Orioles to get their bats back in order, defeating Houston 13-5.
The Baltimore Orioles hope they proved their point last night against Houston. With all the talk about the bats being inconsistent, they broke out in a big way. If anything, the Orioles probably piled on Houston a bit much. Now with that said, they certainly weren’t trying to manufacture runs late – Houston was just surrendering homers left and right.
Kevin Gausman almost gave the Orioles seven strong innings. Gausman’s line: 6.2 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 8 K. Now granted Gausman surrendered five runs, but three of those came in the form of homers. And that’s going to happen from time to time.
The Orioles jumped on things early with Mark Trumbo‘s three-run homer in the first inning. Following a Houston RBI-single and a Jones sac fly-RBI in the second, Kim put the Birds in the driver’s seat by the score of 5-1 with an RBI-single. Then in the fourth the barrage of homers began in earnest.

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J.J. Hardy smacked a two-run shot in that fourth inning, and added a solo homer in the sixth. Later in that sixth inning, Manny Machado added a three-run home run to break the game wide open at 11-3. Houston’s Reed would smack a solo shot, however that was sandwhiched between two solo homers by Chris Davis (in different innings), netting the final score at 13-5.
So yes, sometimes Oriole bats are capable of going into a slumber. Every team can have that happen. However when the Orioles break out, they break out. If you’re into putting crooked or “caddy wampus” numbers on the board, that’s what the Birds did last night. And by virtue of a Boston loss in Detroit, they’re back in second place.
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The Orioles have to hope that they saved some runs for some other games down the stretch, but they really stuck it to Houston last night – needless to say. As Showalter likes to say, eventually someone was going to pay for the struggles the Orioles had been having. And that’s what we saw last night.
Going back to a point I made I the first part of this column, the Orioles didn’t run up the score in this case. Had they been trying to manufacture runs through steals, bunts, etc, that would be a different story. Houston pitching was dealing and the Orioles were hitting – it’s that simple.
Next: Baltimore Orioles fall into third, battles inconsistency
The series continues this evening at Camden Yards with Houston. Wade Miley will be on the mound for the Orioles (still looking for his first win since arriving), and he’ll be opposed by Houston’s Colin McHugh. Game time is set for just after 7 PM.