Monday June 6 vs the Tigers

Opponent: Detroit Tigers
Outcome: W
Score: 5-2
Streak: W1
Record: 13-42
Rank: 7th

GB: 22.5

On the face of it there's not a lot to say about this game.  The Birds won 5-2 on the back of a three run home run by Cal Ripken off of Jack Morris.  Jeff Ballard started for the Orioles and almost pitched a complete game - he was lifted with two outs and two on in the top of the ninth.  Tom Neidenfuer came in and struck out pinch hitter Darrel Evans to end the game and earn his sixth save of the season.

I was at this game (all the "Three Buck Nights" were either Monday or Thursday games) and I remember almost nothing about it.  But reading Richard Justice's game story from the next day's Washington Post (and I have no idea why I have the Post's article and not the Baltimore Evening Sun's) I see there's a couple interesting things.  Had Ballard gotten the complete game it would have been the first complete game victory for an Orioles pitcher in half a season.  Cal's home run was the first three run home run the O's had hit since the previous September.

The big news of the evening though was the demotion of slumping first baseman Eddie Murray to the DH role.  Murray's relationship with the Orioles had been deteriorating since he was criticized by owner Edward Bennett Williams late in the 1986 season and this was just one more stone in his road out of town after the season ended.