Baltimore Orioles Sit Atop the AL East

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It’s July 12th 2014 and the Baltimore Orioles sit atop the American League East division. At 51-41 they are 10 games above .500 since September 2013. With the All-Star festivities upon us next week; what are the keys to the Orioles continuing the success from the first half of baseball? Let’s explore three ways.

 

  1. Kevin Gausman as a mainstay in the Orioles pitching rotation

Kevin Gausman to continue to dominate the Orioles opponents. At 3-2 with a 3.51 ERA the righthander takes the spot until Ubaldo Jimenez returns from the DL. His start on Sunday night will be a nationally televised on ESPN. It will provide an opportunity for Gausman to be exposed to the entire country. Which I expect will be complete dominance.

 

2.    Production of the 7-8-9 Hitters

The last few games for the Orioles the bottom of the lineup have provided a spark on the team. It happened on Friday night with Nick Hundley delivering the Manny Machado run from second base. Hundley was 2-4 in the game and had the hit that provided the win. Machado has batted in the 7th hole the last 3 games. He’s currently batting .267 from the low .220 at the beginning of June. But of course that was Machado still getting his timing back from injury. The game on July 7th (Machado batted second) he went 5-6 with a HR.

 

3.  Big Crowds are needed to back the Birds at home

So as fan of the game I will primarily watch most of the games on MASN. But it’s very different when you are at the game. I’ve been to 2 games so far this year and intend to go to a few more more. I also get perspective from listening to the games via the MLB At Bat app. It tickles me to hear the call from Joe Angel and Fred Manfra. For Orioles tickets definitely use StubHub. And what I found out if you wait a little before game-time the tickets go down even further.

 

 

Phillip Lee

Frederick MD native

Maryland Sports Blog

Photo courtesy of MASN

 

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Brian Hradsky

The owner of MSB, I created this website while in college and it has never died.

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