Baltimore Orioles: Don’t fault Brandon Hyde for pitching to Aaron Judge

Dean Kremer went to the mound this afternoon at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in the series finale against New York. His numbers are worse than he actually looked, but he gave the O’s some decent innings. That of course kept the bullpen fresh, as we head into the dog days. Kremer’s line: 5.1 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 6 K.

Kremer was perfect through two innings. However in the second time through the order New York seemed to figure him out. LeMahieu’s RBI-double in the third gave New York a 1-0 lead. Later in the inning g Judge came to the plate, smacking a two-run homer that may not have landed yet.

Judge came up with a runner on, hence the aforementioned two-run homer. A lot of fans seem to think that Brandon Hyde should have walked him, given his power and how he hits against the O’s. So…what day you?

My attitude is no, you pitch to him (unless the situation in the game warrants putting him on). Walking a guy simply because he hits you well shows a certain amount of gutlessness in my view. Furthermore in my opinion it cheats the game. I can’t beat this guy so I just won’t play with him isn’t the greatest look in sports.

You find a way to beat him, or you deal with the fallout. This isn’t to say that you can’t maybe try to pitch around him a bit, but you don’t outright walk him because you don’t want to pitch to him. As I said, that’s a bad look. There may be “man law” involved in that as well. But that decision didn’t win or lose the game for the O’s – keep that in mind.

Kiner-Falefa’s RBI-single in the sixth extended NY’s lead to 4-0. Trevino’s RBI-double ran things to 5-0, blowing the game wide open. New York would finish things off with an RBI-single by Hicks, and the O’s fell 6-0.

Going back to the issue at hand above however, the O’s were beaten in this game from the first run in the third inning. This because they didn’t score any runs. If you can’t score, everything else is secondary.

The Orioles had guys on base in this game. And they left them there. Again, you can’t fault Judge “beating you” when you don’t put any runs on the board. However again, I agree with the idea of pitching to him.

The O’s open a three-game set tomorrow night against Tampa at Camden Yards. Austin Voth gets the start for the O’s, and he’ll be opposed by Tampa’s Corey Kluber. Game time is set for just after 7 PM.