Baltimore Orioles being eaten alive by minuet details

Errors are piling up on the Baltimore Orioles, and they’re making a huge difference. And the sad thing is that there’s a part of me which says one mistake here and there can’t make THAT big a difference. Yet it does. Gabriel Ynoa was the victim of that mentality last night. Ynoa’s line: 5.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 1 BB, 2 K.

Oakland smacked a solo homer in the third and a three-run shot in the fourth to take a 4-0 lead. Jonathan Villar smacked a solo homer for the O’s in the fifth. That was followed by Rio Ruiz netting a run with a fielder’s choice.

The Orioles appeared to at least be competitive in the game at that point. However in the sixth Oakland put two runs on the board off the bat. That extended their lead to 6-2. Still however, that’s a lead that could be overcome – in theory.

Richie Martin committed a fielding error with two outs. That would have been the final out of the inning. Now in general one can accept an error by a guy like Martin, a Rule 5 pick who’s in his first year in the majors. And again, my own thoughts in a moment like that are there’s two outs, just get one more and the inning is over. No harm no foul.

Only that isn’t how things normally go for the Orioles. When they commit small defensive lapses like that, opposing teams take full advantage. Oakland was no exception last night, and they ended up putting ten runs up in the inning. Think about that, eight runs after the error, ten total.

They would also put up two in the seventh, which came on a two-run homer. Now again it’s tough to argue that the error cost the Orioles the game because they were already losing and in fact they didn’t score again. But who knows how things would have played out?

The Orioles can’t allow themselves to adopt the mentality that I apparently have. By that I mean that they can’t ever just assume there are two outs in an inning and one error won’t kill them. It is a big deal, and when you let your guard down your opponent pounces. That was evident last night.

The O’s will try to savage one game in this series in the finale today at the Oakland Coliseum. Jimmy Yacabomis gets the start for the Orioles (in what could be more of an “opener” situation than a real start), and he’ll be opposed by Oakland’s Chris Bassit. Game time is set for just after 3:30 PM.