Tonight the O's start a three game series versus the Red Sox and hope to maintain their momentum that has seemed to have been building all season long. I still find it hard to believe that most mornings I wake up to see the birds in first and I can say that that is an awesome feeling especially this late in the season. I thought this past weekend would have been a much tougher test against the Nationals, honestly I wasn't sure they could take two from them. But the Orioles pitchers showed up and the hitters showed they could stand their ground against a very good Washington rotation. Sunday wasn't as good, it is especially embarrassing to give up a home run to Strasburg but for the most part we had another great series against a very good team.
Moving on to the Red Sox, this series should be very different from our first series which ended up being a three game sweep in our favor. At that point of the season the Sox were woeful at best and did little to slow us down, we ended up out scoring them 23-12 over that series in their house. Right now the sox are surging they are on a two game win streak and have won eight of their last ten. All phases of their game have improved and you can bet they will be looking to get some revenge on the first place O's. Also the Sox play a little better on the road so it may not be to our benefit that we are home for this series. The pitching match ups look pretty good with Tommy Hunter vs. Clay Bocholz in game one, then Brian Matusz vs. Felix Doubront, and ending up with Jake Arrieta vs. Daniel Bard. I am most comfortable with Jake the snake in their, which of course means Daniel Bard will probably no-hit us. Tommy Hunter has also seemed to lower his fastball a bit which has helped keep the extra base hits down a bit. Brian Matusz is still the wild card, as. he has been all year long. He might only give up three runs and go six innings or he could give up six runs and only go three innings. You can pretty much count on him giving up a few runs but he has been slightly better as of late. Hopefully playing the Sox will crank him up a bit for this series.
All in all I think this series being a good one and I think we could win two out of three but it is hard to tell how much better the Sox are as I haven't watched them play a game since our last series. As for the season, I know it is still early yet but as Buck said the other day we are a quarter of the way through the season and we are still in first place, we are 12 games above .500 and we aren't showing signs of that changing any time soon. We have fought through every injury, bad start, and 17 inning game so far and came out on the winning end of almost every one of those tests. Most importantly to me we are hearing all the right things come out of the club house. I haven't heard any of the guys start running their mouth about how much better we are than anyone else, in fact the one thing you do hear is the guys saying how much more professional this club house is compared to years past, which is a very welcome change. I can't pinpoint what the biggest change is this year from last year but there is just something different about this team. They don't flip out when they strike out or make a bad play. And the pitchers don't implode when they give up a run. They are vastly improved from last and they still have room for improvement. Hopefully everyone can come back strong from the DL and keep this thing going all year. I know there will be low points but I think this team will be able to break out of those much easier than we have seen recently.
One last note, Dylan Bundy is freaking amazing, the kid has yet to give up an earned run in something like 30 innings of professional ball. I don't care what level you are playing at that is crazy production and I can't wait to see this kid live. I wish we were hearing more from our other pitching prospects but for now it looks like we will have to be patient until this kid breaks through. Also I would like to give some kudos to whoever made the call on Xavier Avery and called him up. I remember seeing him in the past and was not that impressed but he seems to be much better this year and it was definitely time for him to move up. Of course that happened partly due to injury but it was easily the best move to make. Any of you wishing we had hung on to Matt Angle now? Let's hope we come ready to hit tonight and keep the sox in last place, Let's Go O's!
Moving on to the Red Sox, this series should be very different from our first series which ended up being a three game sweep in our favor. At that point of the season the Sox were woeful at best and did little to slow us down, we ended up out scoring them 23-12 over that series in their house. Right now the sox are surging they are on a two game win streak and have won eight of their last ten. All phases of their game have improved and you can bet they will be looking to get some revenge on the first place O's. Also the Sox play a little better on the road so it may not be to our benefit that we are home for this series. The pitching match ups look pretty good with Tommy Hunter vs. Clay Bocholz in game one, then Brian Matusz vs. Felix Doubront, and ending up with Jake Arrieta vs. Daniel Bard. I am most comfortable with Jake the snake in their, which of course means Daniel Bard will probably no-hit us. Tommy Hunter has also seemed to lower his fastball a bit which has helped keep the extra base hits down a bit. Brian Matusz is still the wild card, as. he has been all year long. He might only give up three runs and go six innings or he could give up six runs and only go three innings. You can pretty much count on him giving up a few runs but he has been slightly better as of late. Hopefully playing the Sox will crank him up a bit for this series.
All in all I think this series being a good one and I think we could win two out of three but it is hard to tell how much better the Sox are as I haven't watched them play a game since our last series. As for the season, I know it is still early yet but as Buck said the other day we are a quarter of the way through the season and we are still in first place, we are 12 games above .500 and we aren't showing signs of that changing any time soon. We have fought through every injury, bad start, and 17 inning game so far and came out on the winning end of almost every one of those tests. Most importantly to me we are hearing all the right things come out of the club house. I haven't heard any of the guys start running their mouth about how much better we are than anyone else, in fact the one thing you do hear is the guys saying how much more professional this club house is compared to years past, which is a very welcome change. I can't pinpoint what the biggest change is this year from last year but there is just something different about this team. They don't flip out when they strike out or make a bad play. And the pitchers don't implode when they give up a run. They are vastly improved from last and they still have room for improvement. Hopefully everyone can come back strong from the DL and keep this thing going all year. I know there will be low points but I think this team will be able to break out of those much easier than we have seen recently.
One last note, Dylan Bundy is freaking amazing, the kid has yet to give up an earned run in something like 30 innings of professional ball. I don't care what level you are playing at that is crazy production and I can't wait to see this kid live. I wish we were hearing more from our other pitching prospects but for now it looks like we will have to be patient until this kid breaks through. Also I would like to give some kudos to whoever made the call on Xavier Avery and called him up. I remember seeing him in the past and was not that impressed but he seems to be much better this year and it was definitely time for him to move up. Of course that happened partly due to injury but it was easily the best move to make. Any of you wishing we had hung on to Matt Angle now? Let's hope we come ready to hit tonight and keep the sox in last place, Let's Go O's!
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