Chris Davis Has Superhuman Power; Robert Andino Should Get the Save

BREAKING NEWS: The Orioles have won a series. Against a fellow AL East team. That’s pretty decent news.

Luckily, I attended this game, one in which I was able to see a win. They’re very rare (wins, I mean) so I lucked out even though I had extremely obnoxious little girls behind me.

Guthrie was dealing all night. He went 7 innings, threw over 100 pitches, and had 10 strikeouts. He gave up 3 hits, 3 walks, and 2 runs. Really fantastic stuff. Don’t ask me why he can’t do this consistently (even though he’s probably the most consistent on the staff) or why any one the pitchers who show dominance can’t repeat it often enough for this team to have a winning record.

Again, Jim Johnson pitched the 8th and 9th, 2 scoreless and hitless innings only one walk away from being perfect. He has the ability to close. Put him in that role. Why the hell not? What could this team possibly have to lose? NOTHING.

Though JJ is credited with the save and pitched a solid outing, Andino deserves a lot of credit. In the top of the 9th, Ben Zobrist smoked the first pitch, but Andino made a diving stop and threw it to first from his knees, where Mark Reynolds had a beautiful stretch-and-scoop to get the out. Next to bat was Johnny Damon. On the 4th pitch, he smacked a grounder near 2nd when Andino made a very athletic move to get to the ball in time and make a backhand catch and throw to Reynolds, who again, made a good defensive play to ensure the out. The last out was a hard-hit fly ball to Reimold in left to end the game.

Now for the offense. I’m going to write a separate piece about Matt Wieters after this one so he will be given credit later. Who I really want to talk about is Chris Power Man Davis. This guy has so much natural power, it’s scary. On an 0-2 pitch in the 4th inning, he swung at a ball that was almost shoulder-level. However, it’s difficult to characterize what he did as a swing. It almost looked like a check swing, that’s how small of a movement it was. He didn’t even step into the swing, he was standing up straight in the batters box as if he was going to take the pitch. However, he jacked in 382 feet into the left field stands for a 3-run homer to put the O’s up for good. That home run should give O’s fans serious hope as to what this guy will do for us next season. As he matures, so will his power. He’ll learn how to use it better even though he wasn’t even trying and he catapulted one into the stands. I’m still so impressed with this.