Orioles defeat Tigers 5-2, Tim Beckham hits team’s 10,000th home run

The Orioles finally won a game against the Tigers tonight, beating their opponents 5-2 in front of a large crowd on Jonathan Schoop bobblehead night. They hit three home runs, including the 10,000th in team history, and got a good performance from the pitching staff as a whole.

With their victory tonight they can now try to split the four-game series with a win tomorrow.

Can’t spell Dongs without O’s

It looked at first like this would be another low scoring game with the Orioles doing just enough to win (or just enough to make it close enough to blow, depending on your outlook). But some late inning insurance runs made this game a lot more comfortable.

Down 2-0 in the third inning, the Orioles started fighting back. A one-out double by Adam Jones put a runner in scoring position, then a two-out double by Jonathan Schoop knocked in the team’s first run of the day. It was part of a good day for Schoop as he went 2-for-3 with a walk on his bobblehead night.

After that the Orioles decided to go back to their standard run scoring technique: home run. In the fifth inning Adam Jones went deep, his 20th home run. This marks the 7th straight season that he has hit at least 20 home runs. What a pro.

For much of the game the bottom of the order looked like a wasteland. But they came alive in the late innings. First it was Welington Castillo, who joined the dinger party with the go-ahead home run in the seventh inning. Castillo also doubled and scored on a hit by Joey Rickard in the eighth inning.

Before the Castillo double in the eighth, though, Tim Beckham came to the plate. Beckham has been on fire at the plate since joining the Orioles, going 11-for-16 coming into tonight, including home runs in the last two games. After singling in the sixth inning, Beckham launched his third home run in as many nights. It also happened to be the 10,000th home run in Orioles history, because why not?

The crowd showed their appreciation for Beckham’s performance with his new team, cheering him long after he went into the dugout. He finally emerged for a curtain call, the first I can recall seeing for an Oriole in quite some time. Maybe the fans like his hair cut (I do).

Wade “Five Full Innings” Miley

Wade Miley only gave up two innings in this game and lowered his ERA from 5.60 to 5.51. In the process he kept the Orioles in the game, but I found myself annoyed at yet another early exit. Maybe two runs in five innings is the best we can hope for from Miley (it’s what he gave us in his last start as well), but watching it isn’t really a fun time. Maybe I should learn to accept the five-inning start.

The Tigers once again jumped out to an early lead in this game, this time on a two-run homer from Justin Upton. It was part of a 30-pitch first inning for Miley, which was the beginning of a lot of long innings for him. Upton homered with one out and Nick Castellanos on base, then Miley followed that by allowing two more base runners before finally getting a double play to end the inning. Pretty brutal.

Somehow, though, those two runs were the only ones that Miley allowed through his five innings pitched. He labored through the second and third innings without allowing another run. He finished the third inning with a total of 80 pitches, which is just crazy.

Miley actually looked better as he pitched 1-2-3 fourth (17 pitches) and fifth (16 pitches) innings, but he couldn’t dig himself out of the high pitch count hole and he was unable to go any longer than that.

Miley has now pitched five or fewer innings in 15 of his 23 starts (65%), and is averaging just a touch under five innings (4.97) per start. So that’s that. Five innings is what he does, so I guess we should just be happy when he doesn’t give up a ton of runs. His final pitching line was 5 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 3 BB, 5 K.

Bullpen Shutdown

With Miley out after five innings, four innings of work fell to the bullpen. First out of the gate was Darren O’Day, who walked the first batter he saw. Not a great start, but he bounced back to strike out the next two batters and get a ground out to end the inning. There were some dedicated fans in the stands who dutifully sang the O’Day song for the entire inning, so maybe Darren was buoyed by their confidence.

After O’Day came Brad Brach, who was called on to pitch two innings with Mychal Givens unavailable. He came pretty close, retiring the first five batters he faced before losing the battle with Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera singled to left field on the eighth pitch he saw, then took advantage of a bobble by Trey Mancini to get to second base.

With the lead at the time being just one, Buck Showalter called on his closer to get the four-out save. Zach Britton came in to get the third out on a come backer by Mike Mahtook, then pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning to close it out. Britton induced two ground balls on which Manny Machado made two nice plays, then struck out John Hicks to end the game.