Stopping the Red Sox's historic winning streak and other silver linings from the Orioles' most recent series loss

The Baltimore Orioles came into their series against the Boston Red Sox on a seven-game winning streak with a chance, if they had swept the Red Sox, to vault themselves into a playoff spot. They did not do that. Not only did they not sweep the Red Sox, but they lost the series, pushing them even further away from a playoff spot. As disappointing as it is to lose this series, there were several positive takeaways from this series.

Positive takeaway number one was that the Orioles, on the whole, matched up well with the Red Sox despite missing several of their key players. The Red Sox were riding their own 13-game winning streak into the series. They had just swept the #1 seed Rays in a four-game series. Even if their season record says they are a Wild Card team, with how they have played for the last month, it's hard to say there is a team in the American League that is better than them. With that in mind, the Orioles' performance in this series can be viewed as pretty solid.

The Baltimore Orioles acquitted themselves well this week against the Red Sox

There was one game where the Red Sox beat the Orioles soundly, there was a game where the Orioles beat the Red Sox soundly, and in the other game it was a back-and-forth contest that the Red Sox came away with in large part becuase the Orioles committed four throwing errors leading to three runs. If the Orioles just had a three-error game rather than a four-error game, they probably would have won the series.

The Orioles' defense has been poor all season, so it's not like they deserved to win that game. They definitely earned that loss. The point is they played three games against the hottest team in baseball and held their own despite having a depleted roster.

The Orioles are still within three games of the Red Sox in the standings. They play the Red Sox four more times this season, all at Camden Yards. It might be asking a lot of the Orioles to keep pace with this Red Sox team, but if they are still within a few games of each other in the standings when they matchup again in September, the Orioles will have a chance to claw back the games they lost in this series.

Positive takeaway number two is that the Orioles got signs of life from two players that they are depending on who had been floundering in Gunnar Henderson and Jackson Holliday. Henderson, in particular, is having a shockingly poor season by his standards. He's been chasing pitches out of the zone in a way that is uncharacteristic for him, and he's been visibly frustrated all year. This series, he went 5/12 with three doubles, a triple, and just two strikeouts. Even more encouraging than just the results, he looked much better at the plate. He was hitting the ball to the opposite field and running the bases like a wildman, just like everyone would expect from Gunnar Henderson every year of his career leading up to this one.

It's hard to hold Holliday's season entirely against him becuase he is coming back from an injury that is known for having lingering effects on players, but he reached 1,000 career plate appearances last week, and his career numbers are not good. The Orioles need more from their former top prospect. In this series, Holliday went 3/8 with a walk, with two of tos hits coming against left-handed pitching.

If the Orioles can get more offense from their up-the-middle duo of Henderson and Holliday, that would make a big difference, especially while they are missing both of their star catchers.

Positive takeaway number three is that the Orioles got solid contributions from several of their bottom-of-the-order/ less-marquee hitters. Christian Encarnacion-Strand had a huge series, and if he can ride a hot streak for the next few weeks, that would be huge for an Orioles team that looked like it was going to be lost without Blaze Alexander. Johnathan Rodriguez came up and had two hits in his first game back. The much-maligned Tyler O'Neill had a big series, building off a nice series against the Astros. If the Orioles keep getting contributions from players like these, it takes a lot of pressure off the big bats at the top of the lineup.

The last positive takeaway was that Kyle Bradish was excellent against the Red Sox and gave the Orioles a chance to celebrate him, as he was pivotal in snapping the Red Sox's historic streak. After the game, he acknowledged that he was aware of the streak and wanted to end it. Mission accomplished.

These positive takeaways won't mean much if the Orioles go and get swept by the Braves this weekend. They need to take some of these moral victories and use them to start stacking actual victories.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow