While losing two out of three wasn’t the plan going into Toronto, the Orioles will head home still clinging onto first place in the division.
After dropping a tense game by a score of 6-5 in the series opener, the Orioles were again facing a sweep versus a division rival after dropping the middle game of the three-game set by a score of 9-1.
But eventually, after a hard-fought 6-2 win that took 12 innings of play on Sunday, the Orioles finally snapped their five-game losing skid.
The Orioles came out swinging against Marco Estrada on Friday, with Mark Trumbo picking up a two-run double in the first inning.
Unfortunately for the O’s, the Blue Jays wasted no time responding as Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Troy Tulowitzki all crushed solo shots off of Kevin Gausman in the bottom of the first.
Manny Machado would score on an error to level the score, but the Jays responded with Russell Martin and Kevin Pillar both knocking in runs to widen the score to 6-3 in the bottom of the third inning.
J.J. Hardy’s RBI groundout in the fourth and Machado’s solo blast in the eighth cut Toronto’s lead to 6-5, but the comeback attempt would fall just short as the Jays took home the one-run victory in the opener.
With Saturday’s score at 1-0 thanks to Pedro Alvarez’s solo blast off of J.A. Happ in the second inning, Yovani Gallardo held the lead going into the fifth.
However, Gallardo, who seemed to be fatigued, was ripped apart by the Jays in the fifth. Devon Travis equalized with a solo homer, followed by Encarnacion’s go-ahead RBI double.
Russell Martin followed by extending the lead to 5-1 with a two-run double and Pillar opened up the floodgates with a two-run double of his own to cap off the seven-run outburst. Pillar would then tack on another two-RBI double in the seventh, and the Jays coasted to a decisive 9-1 win.
A sweep was looming deep into Sunday’s action. Facing a 2-0 deficit in the seventh, the O’s would score two runs to level the score after Alvarez scored Chris Davis on an RBI groundout and Matt Wieters’ sac fly RBI scored Trumbo.
The Orioles stellar bullpen shut the door on the Jays potent sluggers, and the O’s finally broke through (to the other side) in the 12th with Jonathan Schoop’s go-ahead RBI single and Adam Jones’s three-run blast to take the 6-2 lead and eventual victory.
So yeah, the trip across the border wasn’t pretty. But at least the Orioles saved face by avoiding the sweep. Let’s take a look at the highlights:
– Well, I guess the biggest highlight is jetting out of Toronto. The O’s are 2-5 at Rogers Centre this season and just 5-11 over the past two years.
– Also, the O’s will be glad to be home for three games and four nights before embarking on an extended road trip, which has been a nightmare for the O’s as of late. The O’s have posted a 6-12 record over their last 18 road games.
– Of course, cheers to that five-game skid in which the O’s were outscored 32-15 being done and dusted!
– The O’s will be hoping to bounce back in the month of August after officially posting their first sub-.500 month of 2016 with a 12-14 mark in July.
– Not long ago, the Orioles starters were superb versus the Indians. Fast forward a week and they follow by posting a woeful 9.00 ERA versus the Blue Jays, allowing 13 runs over 13 innings. The O’s starters now own a 6.37 ERA over the past seven contests.
– The Orioles bullpen was starting to trend in the wrong direction going into Sunday’s contest after allowing nine runs over 11.2 innings over the previous three nights. They responded by throwing 6.1 stellar shutout innings in Sunday’s win and now impressively own an outstanding 2.37 ERA over the past 23 games.
– The Orioles offense was stifled again versus the Jays until their extra-inning outburst on Sunday, and finished the series with a lowly .187 average as a team while scoring 12 runs on three homers. Over the last seven games, Orioles sluggers are hitting just .159 while scoring 23 runs (3.2 per game) and hitting only .190 (8-for-42) with runners in scoring position. In the 17 games since the All-Star Break, the O’s are batting a mediocre .213 while scoring a tick under three runs a game with 50 runs scored (2.9 per game).
– After his game-clinching three-run shot on Sunday, Adam Jones is now hitting a sparkling .328 (9-for-28) with three homers and eight RBI over his last seven games.
However, aside from Jones, Hardy and Alvarez, the O’s have several key members of their heavy-hitting cast that are going through season-low slumps. Chris Davis is hitting just .135 with one home run and three RBI over his last 15 games, while Mark Trumbo is hitting just .140 with two homers and seven RBI over the same span.
Superstar Manny Machado is hitting .208 with three home runs and five RBI over his last 15 games, and his bestie, Jonathan Schoop, is hitting .222 with two homers and six RBI over the same stretch. And then there’s Matt Wieters, who’s going through a 3-for-44 (.068) slump over the past two weeks.
The list goes on and on…here’s to our sluggers getting back into form!
And after narrowly avoiding the sweep in Toronto, here’s to bouncing back at the yard!
