Chris Jakubauskas and Tom Gorzelanny started yesterday's game for the Orioles and Washington Nationals respectively. MASN's Amber Theoharis wasn't kidding when she said something to the effect of try to say Jaukauskas and Gorzelanny ten times fast. Having said that I became resigned over the course of yesterday's game to simply call him Jako in reference of course to one of the greatest and most bizzare entertainer of my lifetime. (I know, Michael Jackson is Jacko, but work with me here folks!) Nevertheless, behind a solid performance from Jakubauskas the Orioles were able to salvage one game from Washington in this frame of the mid-Atlantic rivalry. Jakubauskas went five innings and gave up three hits over six hits, one walk, and he struck out six. Furthermore, Jako went 2-for-3 at the plate with two base hits. That's what I love about the National League in that the pitchers get/have to hit. It places a bit of accountability on that pitcher for run support, and thus it's more of a team game. Having said that, I presume that Buck Showalter probably had a brief but spirited conversation with Jakubauskas and third base coach John Russell after Russell sent Jako home in the fifth inning. After he got about halfway home it was obvious he'd be dead in the water; Jakubauskas did exactly what he was supposed to in terms of trying to knock the ball out of the catcher's glove with contact, however most teams don't want their starting pitcher in that situation (American or National League).
In re-watching the game after I got home from the park yesterday, Washington play-by-play man Bob Carpenter said that the O's and Nationals hit a lot of solo home runs. He's correct about that, and the O's used homers from J.J. Hardy and Mark Reynolds to take this game 7-4. In terms of offense this was very much a team win, and while those homers certainly helped they were probably more of a footnote in the overall game story. I also found it interesting that the guys that host the Washington postgame show on their radio network kept making mention of the fact that the Orioles were helped by Washington's three errors. Be that as it may, five of the seven runs the Orioles scored were earned, so without those errors they still would have won by a run (all things being equal).
The O's also were able to save the bullpen in a certain sense. While Jakubauskas only went five innings, the Orioles used Jim Johnson and Koji Uehara out of the pen, both of whom were not used on Saturday. That means that the rest of the pen will be rested going into tonight's series opener in Pittsburgh. In National League games managing the bullpen is even more important because pitchers are forced to hit in games, so you might not be able to expect seven innings out of your starter. Even in playing a National League game, the O's still played some AL East baseball in terms of adding on runs. They'll need to capture that sentiment in a bottle because Pittsburgh is a team that's had some great success thus far in 2011. With a four-run lead in the last of the ninth the O's kept Uehara in the game, and Danny Espinosa hit the first pitch out of the ballpark. Granted the lead was still at three runs, however when you're playing a team that believes no lead is safe and they've won eight straight games, that has to make you think. Suddenly the homestanding Nationals fans got up and started chanting for their team, and it dawned on me that they expected to win. Even down three in the last of the ninth, they expected to win. Luckily Uehara quickly got himself righted and put the Nats down 1-2-3 after that to end the game.
I did find one other thing interesting about how the Washington media covered this series. On that same Nats' postgame show I referenced above, they made a point of saying that the games in DC drew more fans than the games in Baltimore between the two teams. If you take that statistic out of context I suppose it might say that more people care about the Nationals than the O's. At least that's what the DC media would want people to think. However let's put that back into context just for the sake of it; from my vantage point up top, there were a lot of Oriole fans in the stands in DC. In Baltimore, there weren't too many Nationals fans. None of that ultimately matters, however I suppose that I'm cut from the mold that the media should cover the team as objectively as possible. Certainly you can't be totally 100% objective, however I feel that open cheerleading from the media is a bit much. When I pen this column I want the reader to know that I'm on the Orioles' side, however I also try to report the facts as they happen as opposed to cheerleading. When I head announcers such as those for the Chicago White Sox and even the Nationals to a certain degree who openly use the term "we," "us," and "our team," I sort of cringe. Objectivity...through orange colored rims. That's the way I try to be at least.
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