The Orioles played the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox over four days this week. The O's went 1-3 over that span and slipped to 2nd in the AL East division. What happened to the offense?
Against the Detroit, the O's gave up 13 runs and only scored 3 runs in the first game. They did comeback and beat the Tigers 8-4 the next game and split the short series. What concerns me is that the Orioles got out scored 17-11 in this short series. I know that the Tigers are second in runs scored and batting average(O's were #1), but looking at the lineup the O's have, this shouldn't have been a contest. The pitching is about the same for both teams, both are young and still learning.
The Red Sox series was even more disappointing because the O's didn't score a single run the whole two game series. During the first game against the Red Sox, the O's were battling David Wells. Wells was pitching pretty well, but the O's had their chances to get back into the game, and the middle of the lineup couldn't produce key hits. After 4 inning with no support, Bruce Chen threw one bad pitch that went the distance for a 3 run homer that gave the Sox a 4-0 lead. The bullpen didn't help either and gave up 4 more runs. These are the struggling pains of having a young pitching staff, but the bullpen was suppose to be a strong area on the O's. The additions of the Steve brothers (Kline/Reed) have not helped the O's pen, but have allowed teams to score a bunch of runs. B.J. Ryan, Jorge Julio, Todd Williams, and John Parrish have all been solid. It has been the other three that have been shaky (Reed, Kline, Baur). The second game was a good pitching contest that lacked hitting for the O's again. Rodrigo Lopez and the bullpen only gave up 1 run in the game, but the O's put up a donut for the second straight game. Again, the O's had plenty of chances to score but failed. One instance out of the whole game was luck on the Red Sox part when Trot Nixon threw out Palmeiro at home after missing the cut-off man. Brian Roberts streak also came to an end against the Red Sox. B-Rob had hit in all the O's games until the Red Sox came to town. Roberts went 0-8 against the Redsox, and reached base once on a walk in the first game. His average fell to .375 because of the Sox. Next Monday (Apr. 25th), the O's face the Red Sox again to seek their revenge.
If the O's plan on winning their games against the Blue Jays this weekend(starting tonight in Toronto), they need to start hitting again. At no point this year has the pitching been bad enough that the O's couldn't win a game. The big bats need to be held accountable in these past games, for they need to be more focused on winning and not hitting the ball out of the park every at bat. This series is important because the O's need to prove they can rebound after a bad series.
Posted by helimech24 at April 22, 2005 09:06 AM | TrackBack