Oscar Salazar gets congrats after his 3 run shot.
I’m not the kind of guy who stops watching his team when the game is out of hand, no matter what sport. I still like to watch to see how some of the youngsters perform and maybe take some positives out of an otherwise lousy game. And every so often, I am rewarded with something I can say I was able to see while everyone else flipped the game off (such as Nolan Reimold’s first career homerun off Mariano Rivera earlier this season…the only player to EVER do that). But nothing could have prepared me for last night’s improbable, exhilarating, and downright stunning comeback win for the O’s over the Red Sox.
Down 10-1. 7th inning. Against the best bullpen in baseball. No problem. The O’s scored 10 straight runs capped by Nick Markakis’s two run double and won it 11-10 (and didn’t even need the 9th inning to do it).
Pie and Markakis celebrating the comeback victory.
Everybody stepped up, from the usual guys like Markakis and Roberts (nice time to break out of an 0-18 slump) to the youngsters Wieters and Reimold. But how about Oscar Salazar pinch hitting for Mora when the game was seemingly out of hand, and hitting a 3-run bomb to spark the rally? And how about Mark Hendrickson pitching a very nice 3 innings of relief after the rain delay and only giving up a run to keep the Orioles within striking distance (as unlikely as it seemed)? But for me, the best performance came from Felix Pie who was only in the game because Adam Jones slammed his head against the wall trying to rob a Youkilis homer in the first inning. All Pie did was contribute with an RBI triple in the third and a clutch RBI single in the 5 run 7th. However, the play of the game that no one will see was Pie gunning down a Sox runner at the plate to close out the 8th inning. The O’s had just scored 5 runs to close within 10-6. If the Sox are able to tack on a run right after that rally, the wind would be taken out of the O’s sails and all momentum would have been lost. He made a perfect throw to Wieters to save a run and gave the Orioles even more momentum to build on going into what would be an amazing 8th inning complete with a Sox bullpen meltdown including Papelbon’s first ever blow save against the O’s.
Phew! The Orioles exercised a lot of demons with last night’s win, and it serves as a bit of redemption from the Mother’s Day Massacre against the Sox back in 2007 that (eventually) cost Sam Perlozzo his job. It’s wins like these that can get the entire organization excited. Imagine the calvary down in the minors hearing about this and how pumped they must be. It’ll be interesting to see how the team responds to this comeback (the greatest in O’s history) and if they can build upon it not only this season, but even looking further down the road. But I’m not even going to worry about that now. I’m just going to bask in the glory of returning the Red Sox and their bandwagon nation to their glory days of being world class choke artist. But that almost gives the Sox too much credit for this. The Orioles players won this game because they played the full 27 outs, plain and simple. Go O’s.
A Round of Sound 