Dylan Bundy pitched a quality start, and Chris Davis‘ bat led the Baltimore Orioles to victory. No folks, it’s not 2013 or 2014. It’s 2019; and behind two superior performances on the part of Bundy and Davis, the O’s took game one of three in Toronto. Bundy’s line: 6.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 6 K.
Bundy commanded the strike zone all night. And that was the key to keeping Toronto off the board for the most part. However for once, the O’s were able to put together a quality start/good pitching performance and decent enough offense to win a game.
It was Davis who got the scoring going in the second inning. In his first at-bat of the game, Davis smoked a homer over the fence, giving the Birds a 1-0 lead. A lead that they would never surrender.
Later in the inning Jonathan Villlar‘s RBI-single would extend the lead to 2-0. And when you have a pitcher like Bundy tonight, one who’s on his game, that’a all you really need. This game was very much old school baseball in a sense. One team puts some runs on the board, and then it comes down to pitching.
Bundy did start to tire however in the seventh. Drury’s solo homer in the last of the seventh cut the Orioles’ lead to 2-1. However the Birds lifted Bundy immediately, in hopes that the Orioles’ bullpen could hold the lead. They would do just that – but they had some help.
The O’s put two runners on base in the ninth, and they were hunted into scoring position by Anthony Santander. That brought Davis back to the plate, who smacked a two-RBI single. THAT folks, is how baseball was meant to work. In this case, it preserved the win for the Birds. The O’s would send Toronto down 1-2-3 in the last of the ninth, and they ultimately won the game.
Who’s to say that the last of the ninth would have gone as smoothly and as anti-climatically as it did without those insurance runs? Ultimately the O’s once again reversed the script of how things have gone most of this season. Whereas other teams have often tacked on against them, this time around they did it to an opponent.
The series continues tomorrow at Rogers Centre. Andrew Cashner gets the start for the O’s, and he’ll be opposed by Toronto’s Clayton Richard. Game time is set for just after 3 PM.
Birdland Crush 