It begins and ends with starting pitching – for the Baltimore Orioles and everyone else. The Birds got a quality start in Seattle for the second consecutive game last night, this time from Kyle Bradish. He mowed ‘em down – Seattle hitters, that is – from the beginning. Bradish’s line: 7.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 12 K.
Twelve strikeouts. There’s something to that. Some of the best pitching outings that the Orioles have gotten this year had high strikeout totals from their own staff. This as opposed to pitching on the fringes of the plate with the idea that a high spin rate is going to induce putting the ball in play. All that’s done is induce soft contact and assisted opponents in getting on base. Twelve strikeouts is also a career-high for Kyle Bradish.
The O’s struck first when Gunnar Henderson smacked a two-run homer in the third. Bradish would surrender his one run one inning later when Canzone’s RBI-single got Seattle on the board. However Bradish also minimized the damage. Which is often a key to a quality start.
The O’s would begin to tack on in the sixth. Leody Taveras’ RBI-triple extended the lead to 3-1. It’s also worth noting that Tyler O’Neill robbed Raleigh of at the very least an extra-base hit in the sixth. Raleigh sent a deep drive to right field; O’Neill scaled the wall and caught the ball on the railing. O’Neill has seen a lot of criticism from fans for his lack of production at the plate, but that was as big a defensive play as you’ll see.
The O’s put runners at the corners in the seventh, and Taylor Ward drove in a run by grounding into a double-play. Not the ideal way to score, but it’s still a run. Jackson Holliday would smack a solo home run in the ninth as an insurance run.
The Orioles got Ryan Helsley back off the IL coming into this series. The one slight blip in the radar from last night’s game was that he surrendered back-to-back solo homers in the last of the ninth. Again, not ideal. But Helsley did seem to right himself and he sent Seattle down in order after that, soaring the Birds to a 5-3 win.
The series concludes this afternoon at T-Mobile Park. Shane Baz gets the start for the Orioles, and he’ll be opposed by Seattle’s Bryan Woo. Game time is set for just after 4 PM.
Birdland Crush 