Opponent: California Angels
Outcome: W
Score: 8-7
Streak: W1
Record: 6-31
Rank: 7th
GB: 18.5
After three games against the AL West leading A's, the Orioles got to face the team at the other end of the standings. The Angels came into town with a record of 14-23 and were in seventh place, 13.5 games behind Oakland. Of course they were still about 8.5 games better than the Orioles.
Tonight was the managerial debut of the Orioles third manager of the year - Elrod Hendricks. Frank Robinson hadn't been fired but his back pain had reached the point that he needed to be hospitalized for a few days so Hendricks was taking over on an interim basis. I'm not entirely sure how long he was at the helm but I think it was only for about four or five games.
His debut was victorious but it was an ugly game. The Orioles scored their first run in the bottom of the first without a hit. Keith Hughes led off with a walk. After Fred Lynn flied out, Angels pitcher Mike Witt uncorked a wild pitch with Cal Ripken at the plate that moved Hughes to second. Witt then walked Ripken. Eddie Murray hit a ground ball to first baseman Wally Joyner who threw to second to force Cal but the return throw was not in time to double up Murray. With Larry Sheets at the plate Witt threw another wild pitch that scored Hughes from third and moved Murray to second. Sheets then got the Orioles first hit with a single that brought Murray in with the second run.
The Angels got on the board in the top of the third in a similar fashion. With one out Dick Schofield singled. Brian Downing was then hit by a pitch from Orioles starter Jose Bautista. The second pitch to the next batter Mark McLemore got by catcher Mickey Tettleton and the runners moved up to second and third. McLemore brought Schofield in from third when he grounded out to Murray with Bautista covering first. The Angels tied the score in a more traditional fashion the next inning when a Chili Davis single and a Johnny Ray double was followed up by an RBI ground out by Jack Howell.
The Orioles seemingly broke the game open in the bottom of the sixth. Fred Lynn led off with a walk. Cal Ripken hit a ground ball in the hole between shortstop and third that third baseman Howell fielded and then threw away. Lynn and Ripken ended up at third and second respectively. Murray was then intentionally walked to load the bases. Sheets grounded out to second to move the runners up and knock Lynn in for the go ahead run. Witt intentionally walked Jim Dwyer to load the bases again and then unintentionally walked Tettleton to bring Cal in. After Rick Schu struck out, Bill Ripken hit a bases-clearing double to the alley in right field. Keith Hughes then flew out to end the inning - an inning in which the Orioles sent nine men to the plate and scored five runs on four walks, two hits and one error. When Fred Lynn led off the bottom of the seventh with a home run to make the score 8-2, things looked well in hand for the Birds.
But nothing came easy for the Orioles this night (or much of this season for that matter). Schofield walked to lead off the top of the eighth for the Angels and Downing followed with a single. Hendricks went to the bullpen at this point and replaced Bautista on the mound with Doug Sisk. Sisk immediately loaded the bases by walking McLemore and the Joyner hit a two RBI single. Sisk then walked Chili Davis to reload the bases and Hendricks had seen enough. Don Aase came in to pitch for the Birds and he gave up an RBI single to the first batter he faced (Ray) before getting Howell, Tony Armas and Butch Wyneger out to leave the bases loaded. The Orioles lead was now down to 8-5.
The Orioles closer (in theory - they'd only had one save so far this season) Tom Niedenfuer came in to pitch the top of the ninth. With one out Downing tripled. McLemore then hit what Baseball-Reference describes as a "Single to SS (Pop Fly to Deep 3B)". I'm not sure what that means but in any case McLemore ended up on first and was credited with a single while Downing remained at third. Joyner then singled to right to score Downing and move McLemore to third. Davis hit a ground ball to Murray at first who threw to Niedenfuer covering for the out but McLemore scored on the play and the tying run in the form of Joyner was now on second. Finally Niedenfuer got Ray to fly out to center to end the threat and the game.
Jose Bautista got the win - it was his first MLB victory.
Here's the game story from the Washington Post - I found it when I was researching when Hendricks had managed the team.
No comments:
Post a Comment