After 19 consecutive losses, the Baltimore Orioles finally did the seemingly impossible last night, defeating the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim by a score of 10-6. When the night begin, avoiding that 20th straight defeat seemed like an unlikely occurrence, as the starting pitching tilt was nothing short of a colossal mismatch.
The Birds ran out LAA’s own 2014 3rd round pick, 28-year-old Chris Ellis. It was the first start of Ellis’ big league career, which until last night spanned all of five total innings – four this year for Tampa Bay, and one in 2019 with Kansas City.
On the other side, the Angels trotted out the modern-day Babe Ruth, Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani hadn’t allowed more than a single home run in a start this season, so of course Cedric Mullins led off with a dinger on the first pitch he saw, and then Anthony Santander followed with another of his own just three batters later. Baseball!
Things weren’t looking rosy for long though, as the Halos touched up Ellis for two in the top of the second. It would have been worse, but they ran themselves out of the inning on the basepaths. After a quick third inning, Ellis gave up a dinger on his first pitch of the fourth inning, and quick-hook Hyde was out to get him. As is usually the case with Hyde’s pitching changes, this one worked out beautifully, as Marcos Diplan faced four batters, nearly giving up the cycle – double, walk, home run, single – before being replaced himself.
Just like that it was 6-2, and loss number 20 loomed large.
To the O’s credit though, they continued to fight, and the Angels, to their credit showed how they still continue to flounder near the bottom of the AL West year after year despite having Mike Trout for years and now Ohtani. LA relievers walked in not one, but two runs in Orioles’ pivotal bottom of the eighth in which they turned a 6-5 deficit into a 10-6 lead.
Austin Hays’ pinch-hit two-run double and a sacrifice fly gave Baltimore some breathing room. As O’s fans, we know it’s never quite enough breathing room, but this time it all worked out in the end.
Birdland had a good time celebrating the victory on Twitter, because we take our fun where we can get it with this squad.
It started with the Orioles’ poor social media person, who finally got to post about something other than a loss, and didn’t disappoint.
We did it, y'all. pic.twitter.com/Ewweelq6J3
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) August 26, 2021
Former ESR blogger Eric Arditti took things a little too far perhaps? Nah…not when you consider that he had vowed to jump in the Baltimore harbor if the skid had reached 20. (caution: language)
YOU THOUGHT THEYD LOSE 20 STRAIGHT I TOLD YOU THERE WAS NO CHANCE. I LOVE THIS TEAM, THEY BOATRACED OHTANI AND GOT THE WIN!!!! I knew I wasn’t going in the harbor, wasn’t even a chance. I had faith in my guys. I love you all pic.twitter.com/QxGOIeHqSl
— Barstool Are Dee Tee (@editti22) August 26, 2021
We then learned that there had been some voodoo before the game by O’s players:
The Orioles try to win their second straight game this afternoon against the Angels, and as I type this, they are already down 1-0 in the first inning.
The beat goes on…
