Baltimore Orioles: Can’t win them all

Luckily the O’s were playing with house money today anyways in the sense that they had already won the series with the Toronto Blue Jays 8-2. However this afternoon at Rogers Centre we saw how quickly an inning can balloon out of control in baseball. Most fans’ attitudes tend to be “why does this always happen to us?” However again I would point out that the Birds took the first two games of this series. Granted from Toronto’s perspective the blow of dropping two-of-three to a division foe is eased a bit in the sense that they won the final game and ended the series on a high. However the O’s can’t allow themselves to forget the overall story of this series.

Brian Matusz was somewhat unimpressive again, however the O’s were only trailing by two when he departed. The real story line from the game was that Kevin Gregg allowed several inherited runs to score, and let three of his own. To say the least, Gregg appeared to revert to his form from last year in this game. When Gregg came to the Orioles he was advertised as a guy that “doesn’t give in” when it comes to hitters. Translated, that means that he isn’t going to throw pitches out of the strike zone and allow hitters to work the count. However if we all know that Gregg doesn’t give in, opposing batters have to know as well. So is it a wonder that Gregg gets hit so hard when he does?

Adam Jones did hit one of the longer home runs you’re going to see at Rogers Centre, off of the facade on the third deck. This is one of those games whereby the O’s need to dust their derrieres off and head to Chicago. One thing to note is that while there’s no rain in the forecast the weather in Chicago is forecasted to be in the 40’s and 50’s all week, which is a far cry from Rogers Centre’s temperature controlled 70 degrees. Hopefully Oriole bats can continue to hit in the clutch even in that kind of weather.

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