The Orioles finally bested the Athletics tonight, their first win against them since July 22, 2007, and they have David Hernandez to thank for it.
Hernandez was coming off of two bad outings vs Boston and Detroit and he bounced back very nicely to look more like the David Hernandez we saw earlier this season. He gave the bullpen a much needed break by pitching 6.2 innings of 6 hit ball. He walked just one batter and struck out a career high 6, and he looked pretty good with the exception of two solo home runs. The bullpen closed it out with Albers pitching the last out of the 7th, Danys Baez with a perfect 8th, and JJ closing it out for his 4th save on the year.
The O's offense continues to sputter, managing just 3 runs despite facing a pitcher with awful numbers. Prior to tonight Trevor Cahill had allowed 17 runs in his past 16 innings. That didn't stop the Orioles from looking bad against him. Luckily they were able to do just enough. Brian Roberts led the charge with a 3 hit evening including his 39th double and 2 stolen bases, but his night was spoiled by an awful base running blunder. With 1 out and Roberts on 2nd, Nick Markakis hit a high popup to the third base side of the infield. Roberts, thinking there were two outs, had crossed home plate by the time the ball was caught and was easily thrown out for the double play. It was horribly embarrassing, and not just for Roberts. As was wondered by many in the game thread, where on earth was Juan Samuel and why wasn't he screaming at Roberts to get back to 2nd base?
Thankfully the Orioles were able to win this game, otherwise that mistake would have been huge. The O's had already scored two runs in the inning and were poised for more with Brian in scoring position. It was an awful mental mistake, but the worst part of it is now I'm probably going to have to listen to even more people talk about how Brian is a lazy unfocused so-and-so.
The Orioles first run of the game was pretty much manufactured by Nolan Reimold. He singled, stole second, moved to third on a ground out, and scored when Melvin Mora hit a grounder off the bottom of his bat. Mora had no idea what was going on (maybe he thought it was foul?) because he didn't move towards first base. Reimold could see what was happening and raced home. Their other two runs came in the bottom of the fifth when Chad Moeller and Cesar Izturis led off with back-to-back singles to set the table for Brian Roberts. Brian delivered with a single to right to score Moeller and after Roberts stole second, Adam Jones grounded out to shortstop, scoring Izturis.