BALTIMORE – God forbid the Orioles let their manager relax and enjoy a five-run lead in the ninth inning.
Instead, a couple of middle relievers gave late-inning bullpen stars Yennier Cano and Félix Bautista the day off and nearly gave Brandon Hyde a heart attack.
OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but when you’re leading 5-0 after getting a career performance from starting pitcher Kyle Bradish and you’ve got a chance to cruise to your season-high eighth straight victory, it couldn’t have felt too great watching seven Miami Marlins hitters battle to keep the inning alive and bring the hottest hitter in the major leagues to the plate.
The Orioles had held sizzling Marlins leadoff man Luis Arraez hitless in four previous at-bats to put a slight dent in the .386 batting average he brought into the game, but that was even more reason to order Hyde a postgame stress test. The guy had been kept off base in just eight of the previous 88 games he started this season and O’s left-hander Danny Coulombe had given up hits to the previous two batters.
“That’s not the guy you want to see come up with a runner in scoring position with two outs as the tying run,’’ Hyde said just minutes after Arraez sliced a line drive right into the glove of leftfielder Austin Hays to end the suspense and allow the O’s to savor the 5-4 victory and a series sweep before another raucous Camden Yards crowd.
“What’s the guy hitting — .380– and such great bat-to-ball skills and had a great series offensively. Tough guy to pitch to but give Danny credit for getting him out there, but it was a little two dicey at the end.”
Of course, everything is coming up Orioles these days, so why should anyone have doubted them? They snapped out of a seven-game slump 12 days ago and closed out the non-mathematical first half with five straight wins over the Yankees and first-place Twins. The Marlins are no slouch, either, coming into the series with the second-best record in the National League.
The Orioles came back from an early four-run deficit on Saturday night to score another in a very long line of comeback wins and jumped out to a three-run lead Sunday before making their first out of the game. It don’t come easy no matter which way they play it.
The victory Sunday drew the O’s to within one game of the AL East-leading Rays, which is quite an accomplishment considering the Rays opened the season with 13 straight victories, but Hyde said on Sunday that he hasn’t really had time to enjoy the ride.
“I don’t know if enjoy is the word,’’ he said. “I appreciate it and I think these guys are doing an amazing job in a tough league and I’m really proud of how hard they’re playing and I’m proud of how they come to play and come to win every day. We have a lot of talent on the hitting side right now and the way guys are giving up at-bats for others and sharing playing time, I think that shows the character of our team.”
It also shows just how deep the talent runs through the organization right now and how a long string of key moves by both the manager and front office have worked out. Both Hyde and executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias have all but run the table through the first 3 ½ months of the season.
“We have a really talented team and I’d love to play everybody,” Hyde added, “and everybody just wants to contribute every game. So how that mindset is going, I’m really happy about that, but I’ve already kind of moved on to L.A. I was just talking about who we’re facing tomorrow and thinking about the Dodgers and how great that lineup is and how good that team is, so it’s really a day-by-day process. I don’t get a ton of time to enjoy the small victories, I guess.”
