Monday May 23 at the Athletics

Opponent: Oakland Athletics
Outcome: W
Score: 7-3
Streak: W3
Record: 9-34
Rank: 7th
GB: 19.5

For the second time in 10 days the Orioles were opening a series against the Oakland Athletics, the team with the best record in the American League.  The A's had only gone 5-4 in that period but they still had a 7 1/2 game lead over the second place Texas Rangers and still had the second best record in all of baseball.  Dave Stewart was starting for Oakland this night - 10 days earlier the Orioles had dealt him his first loss of the season although he still pitched a complete game.

Lightning stuck twice this evening as the Orioles again defeated Stewart despite him throwing a complete game against them.  Baltimore exploded for four runs in the top of the second when Eddie Murray hit a single to lead off and Larry Sheets followed with a double.  A Jim Dwyer single scored Murray and an RBI ground out by Mickey Tettleton scored Sheets - Dwyer was forced at second but an errant throw by Oakland shortstop Walt Weiss not only kept the A's from doubling up Tettleton but allowed him to reach second.  Tettleton then scored when Rick Schu doubled down the left field line.  Schu then moved to third when Stewart threw a wild pitch to Bill Ripken.  Ripken then executed a suicide squeeze but that scored Schu with the fourth run of the inning.  A two run home run by Cal Ripken in the next inning would make the score 6-0.

Mike Boddicker had started for the O's and he ran into a bit of trouble in the bottom of the third when Dave Henderson led off with a double.  Carney Lansford brought him in with a two out single a couple batters later and when Dave Parker followed up with another single it looked like Oakland might be getting their offense into gear.  But Boddicker struck out Jose Canseco to end the inning without any further trouble.

Boddicker was actually pitching pretty well this evening - through five innings he'd only given up four hits (three of those in the third inning) and walked one against one of the best offenses in baseball.  He'd struck out four and had only thrown 71 pitches but for some reason O's manager Frank Robinson pulled him after five innings despite having a 6-1 lead.  The only explanation that I can think of is that since Boddicker had lost his previous 13 decisions going back to the 1987 season Robinson wanted to make sure Boddicker would be in line for the win and couldn't lose the game.  Not to mention that Boddicker was also going on three days rest having pitched the opener of the disastrous double header against the Angels the previous Thursday.

Dave Schmidt went to the mound in the bottom of the sixth for the O's and made everyone immediately second guess the pitching change when Lansford led off with a single and Parker followed with an RBI double.  But Schmidt retired Canseco, Mark McGwire and Ron Hassey to keep the lead at 6-2 and the Orioles got the run back a couple innings later when Fred Lynn led off the eighth with a home run.  Schmidt faced the minimum number of batters in the seventh and eighth - the only blemish was when he hit Don Baylor to open the bottom of the seventh but Baylor was erased on an inning ending double play two batters later. 

Things got a little dicey in the bottom of the ninth however and the memories of the bullpen meltdowns from the previous week weighed heavily on everyones' minds.  Canseco led off the inning with his 11th home run of the season but Schmidt got the next two batters (McGwire and Hassey) out.  But Baylor and Henderson hit back to back singles to keep the game alive.  Robinson then went to the bullpen and brought Tom Neidenfuer in who promptly hit pinch hitter Doug Jennings to load the bases and bring the tying run to the plate in the person of Ed Jurak who was pinch hitting for Weiss.  Neidenfuer got Jurak to hit a ground ball to Cal Ripken who threw to his brother Bill at second to force Jennings for the final out.

After not having won back-to-back games all season, the Orioles had now won three in a row.  More importantly, Mike Boddicker had won his first game since defeating these same Oakland A's on September 4th, 1987 - a period of 262 days.