Orioles Overview: Week 3
Patrick Semansky, AP
This was by far the best week for the Orioles so Far. The Orioles went 4-1 one saw the perfect combination of great pitching and clutch hitting. In the four wins the Orioles outscored opponents 20-6. Chris Davis got his first home run of the season, and he stole two bases. However, there are still some concerns surrounding the team.
Tommy Hunter blew his first save of the season. I’m not too worried about that as Colby Rasmus clearly swung the pitch before. Plus that pitch was at his eyes, not many guys are gonna take that out.
Also, Ubaldo Jimenez still isn’t pitching well. As I wrote earlier in the week I’m not worried about that. He is a slow starter and a strong finisher.
The Orioles aren’t hitting home runs. As long as they are winning games this is not necessarily a bad thing. The Orioles have lived and died by home runs the last two years. The Orioles being able to manufacture runs is something I love to see. That being said, its always nice to get some 3-run homers every now and again. They will come as the weather changes. There have been some many well hit balls that just did not carry. Matt Wieters had two in consecutive at-bats that I (and Gary Thorne) thought were home runs for sure. The Birds just have too much power, the home runs will come eventually.
In my opinion, the best thing about this week was the performance from the starters. They all had great starts, except for Jimenez. In the 4 wins the Orioles starters have a 1.95 era. Gonzalez and Tillman were only able to go 5 innings in their starts, but that was because of the hitters taking the counts deep instead of poor pitching. The good thing about the Orioles bullpen this year is they have a couple of former starters back there to eat up innings when they need to.
The best thing is, the Orioles are only going to get better when Manny Machado comes back to the lineup.
