I’ll say this for the Baltimore Orioles: they have a lot of fight in them.
They deserve a lot of credit for the way they finished this homestand. To lose the first six games, three of them in gut punching fashion, and when your stud closer seems to have sprung a leak, you would think morale would be down.
If you’ve ever seen “The Natural” you should remember the part early in the film where the team brings a hack shrink in to talk to the players. His spiel is “Losing is a disease. As contagious as…”
The Orioles are only human, so you could forgive them if they went into a deeper funk. Not these guys. Momentum is your next day’s starting pitcher, and two quality starts later from Miguel Gonzalez and Jason Hammel gave them a series win against the rival New York Yankees.
Yesterday’s effort was helped by three home runs, one each from Nick Markakis, Chris Davis, & Matt Wieters. It was encouraging to see the way the bats went after Yankees starter Hiroki Kuroda, who threw a complete game against the O’s at Yankee Stadium earlier this season.
You want more good news? Today is Buck Showalter’s 57th birthday, and tonight über prospect Kevin Gausman makes his major league debut, getting the start in Toronto against the Blue Jays. I will be watching every pitch with extra excitement.
The Orioles organization has proven recently that they will bring up their hot prospect, as Manny Machado and Dylan Bundy made their MLB debuts last season.
For Gausman tonight, the future is now!
