Hordes of Orioles fans made the trek to The Windy City over the weekend to watch the O’s take on the Chicago Cubs at beautiful Wrigley Field, and hordes of Orioles fans were summarily disappointed.
After sweeping the White Sox earlier in the week and pushing their lead in the American League East to 9.0 games, the Birds looked poised to put together another winning road trip and bring home a sizable cushion over the Yankees and Blue Jays.
Instead, the O’s sleepwalked through the three games at the friendly confines, and a trio of former Orioles had a heavy hand in helping to deal Buck’s squad their first three-game losing streak since May. The three-game sweep also gave the O’s a 4-5 road trip, their first losing road trip of the season.
It was a special form of torture this weekend for sure. On Friday it was Jake Arrieta continuing the resurrection of his career in Chicago after failing time and again in Baltimore, holding the O’s to one run on four hits over seven innings in a 4-1 Cubs win. Pedro Strop tossed a scoreless frame of relief as a cherry on top.
Saturday, the O’s jumped out to a nice little 2-0 lead, only for Bud Norris to fall victim to a couple bloop base hits and then an RBI triple that made the score 4-2 Cubbies just before the skies opened up and caused a three-hour-plus rain delay. After the tarp came off, the O’s were no match for the Chicago bullpen, and they fell 7-2.
Sunday, it was another failed Oriole, Tsuyoshi Wada, who never even made it to the majors while in Baltimore after the O’s brought him over from Japan, who added insult to injury. Wada no-hit the Birds through six innings, allowing only a home run to Steve Pearce that broke up the no-no in the seventh. Strop pitched yet another scoreless inning, and the O’s managed just that single hit for the entire game in a 2-1 loss.
Ugly, ugly, ugly.
To make matters worse, those same White Sox who were kind enough to lay down for the Birds earlier in the week showed just as little fight in their trek to New York, getting swept by the Yankees.
And now, just like that, four days after we were seemingly planning our victory parade, just as many here in Birdland are lining up at the Key Bridge, ready to step off.
Yes, getting swept by the Cubs sucks.
Yes, having a lead cut from 9.0 games to 6.0 games in the span of three days sucks.
And yes, going from 21 games over .500 to 18 games over in the blink of an eye sucks.
But…
Take a breath, O’s fans. It’s not about what our lead WAS, or what our record WAS – it’s about what it IS, and where it’s going.
Here are the facts:
The Orioles are 18 games over .500.
They have a 6.0-game lead in the American League East, the second-largest division lead in all of baseball.
They play 21 of their next 27 games at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
The Magic, though it took a weekend off, is ready to take over OPACY for the next five weeks.
Well, ok…that last one might not be a “fact” per se, but I’m still ready to declare it a truth.
Get out to Camden if you’re at all able here on this next home stand. While things won’t be easy – the Tampa Bay Rays bring their strong, although Price-less, starting rotation to Baltimore for four games looking to play spoiler – like I said, it’s not about what the lead was, it’s about what it is, and where it’s going.
See you at the Yard.
