So to further add insult to injury in 2010, while the Orioles were in Texas the Rangers traded for Cliff Lee. Go figure, Lee was inserted into the Rangers' rotation immediately and started against the O's last night. This of course came on the heels of two late-inning comebacks for the Orioles against the Rangers. So conventional wisdom said that streak would probably come to an end with Cliff Lee on the mound, and Chris Tillman coming back up to make the start in place of Kevin Millwood. Tillman of course had been on that Norfolk shuttle two other times this year. With Lee on the mound, a taxed bullpen, and a started fresh up from the minors, this game had a Texas victory written all over it.
One of the two above-mentioned pitchers took a no-no bid into the seventh inning, and his name wasn't Lee...Tillman's final line: 7.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 3 K. The Orioles made a statement early by swinging at the first two pitches; Corey Patterson hit double, and Miguel Tejada a single, and suddenly the Orioles led 1-0 before Lee even got a ball by an Oriole hitter. Nick Markakis, Adam Jones, and (I hope you're sitting down for this one) Caesar Izturis all homered, and the Orioles won the game 6-1. Izturis is the most unlikely of those three, hitting his first (and possibly his last) homer of 2010.
As I said, Tillman took a no-hit bid into the seventh inning before it was broken up by Ian Kinsler. This was without a doubt the best performance of Tillman's young career. Going into spring training Tillman was the apparent favorite to be the team's fifth starter. Manager Dave Trembley's decision to go with David Hernandez and send Tillman to triple-A to start the season raised a few eyebrows. However in two other stints in the majors this season, Tillman had been unimpressive at best. That ended last night. Admittedly, it was only one start. However it was a heck of a way to re-introduce yourself to the major leagues.
So this afternoon the Orioles will have a chance to sweep (yes, I said sweep) the Rangers under the blonde sun of Texas in an afternoon game. (Most of the time it seems that the Rangers are granted the right to play evening games on Sundays by the league due to the intense heat. I suppose they're playing in the afternoon today since it's "getaway day" before the all-star break.) Normally I would say that whether they sweep the series is irrelevant because they've already proven a lot in this series. However that attitude might be part of the problem we've seen this season with the Orioles. In sports you have to have the eye of the tiger. That means that just taking three of four shouldn't necessarily be enough. You should want to win every game, regardless of whether or not you won the day before or not. And in this case, the O's might have an ace-in-the-hole in the fact that Jake Arrieta will get the ball today. Arrieta played at TCU, and spent his summers playing in the Texas Collegiate Summer League, so he's used to the Texas summers. A four-game sweep at someone else's house would be a fitting way to close out the first half of the season for the Orioles, a team that's had just about every ball bounce the wrong way thus far. But this is far from over...not by a long shot!
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