Kyle Bradish pitched outstanding this evening for the Baltimore Orioles against The Athletics. It was by far Bradish’s best start of the season, and maybe one of the best of his career. And it was for naught. Bradish’s line: 7.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 10 K.
The Orioles are the only team in baseball who’s never won this year against a southpaw starter. And that continued this evening. Yet all things being equal, it probably should have been a 2-1 Orioles’ win.
Pete Alonso continued his hot streak with a solo home run in the last of the fourth to give the O’s a 1-0 lead. But it came unglued in the fifth – through no fault of Bradish. Wilson began the inning with a softly-hit but perfectly placed infield single to first base. Butler would then single to left, and suddenly the Athletics had a rally going. It started that innocently. And Gelof’s RBI-single tied the game at one.
Later in the inning a two-RBI triple by Kurtz gave the Athletics the lead at 3-1. The O’s would get one back in the sixth on a solo homer in the sixth. Bradish would leave after seven, and the newly called-up Kyle Gibson (who took the roster spot of the injured Cade Povich) would surrender a softly-hit RBI-single by Wilson. And the O’s fell, 4-2.
The Gelof single to left field I mentioned above in the fifth inning; it was curious. According to various internet stats’ sites, Gelof is a guy who a lot of teams play to bunt. That’s what the analytics say. And the Orioles appeared to do that, expecting a Gelof bunt.
However Gelof swung away. And he grounded the ball to Gunnar Henderson at short. Henderson did get to the ball; but he didn’t have time to quite get to it, and it trickled into left field. That set up an inning of consequence in the game, which ultimately led to an Athletics’ win.
Henderson would later bobble what should have been a double-play ball, further setting the inning up for the Athletics. That turned into a fielder’s choice, meaning it wasn’t an error. However that’s a play that has to be made. It would have been a double-play. Instead it was only one out.
Did the Athletics see the analytics behind Gelof’s at-bat and reverse-engineer it? Every opposing team knows the Orioles are married to these analytics. So would it not stand to reason that they would weaponize it? They think I’m bunting, so I’m going to swing away. And when the ball was put into play, the Orioles were slightly out of place.
This might be part of the reason for the struggles the past two years. Since June of 2024 in reality. To me it stands to reason that many teams just look at their own tendencies and try in many cases to do the opposite. They think we’re going to bunt, so we’ll do everything BUT. That’s why you have to use some situational awareness in games, as opposed to dealing only in stats.
And when Samuel Basallo smacked an RBI-single in the last of the ninth, all of the runs truly mattered. Perhaps the line between winning and losing is at times that fine. Especially when you consider that the Orioles had the winning run on base in the last of the ninth.
The series continues tomorrow afternoon at Camden Yards. Shane Baz gets the start for the O’s, and he’ll be opposed by the Athletics’ Aaron Civale. game time is set for just after 4 PM.
Birdland Crush 