Lee Lowenfish

The surprising Baltimore Orioles have played many memorable games this season, but their 5-4 11th inning walkoff victory over the Tampa Bay Rays yesterday afternoon (Sun Sep 17) at Camden Yards was truly remarkable.  Even gracious Rays GM Erik Neander admitted afterwards that it was a great game.  

 

The Birds trailed in the bottom of the 8th, 9th and 10th innings. Young budding superstar catcher Adley Rutschman somehow managed to homer on a 101 mph fastball off fearsome Rays closer Pete Fairbanks to cut the lead to 3-2 in the 8th. 

 

Down to their last out in bottom of 9th, journeyman Adam Frazier came through with an opposite field double to send the game into extra innings as  speedy Jorge Mateo, pinch-running for Austin Hays who had singled up the middle, went flying around the bases. The Rays grabbed the lead in top of 10th on two Baltimore chop grounders that scored the ghost runner from second. More on that annoying innovation in a moment.

 

 

In top of 11th, young southpaw D.L. Hall had perhaps his finest moment as an Oriole holding the Rays scoreless. And then Oriole baseball 2023 style won the game in the bottom half. 

 

Ryan O'Hearn, who didn't even make the Orioles out of spring training after 5 pedestrian years with Kansas City, laid down the first sacrifice bunt of his MLB career. O'Hearn has been a godsend to the lineup. making up for the injuries to regular first baseman Ryan Mountcastle.  Also a corner outfielder,

O'Hearn has a chance to finish as the team's only .300 hitter. 

 

How fitting it was that Cedric Mullins, who came up at end of 2018 and has endured more losses than any current Oriole, hit a deep sacrifice fly to score ghost runner Rutschman with the winning run.

 

Now about that ghost runner or Manfred Man, as one wit wth pop music cred calls it.  I was happy to learn that the joint player-management rules committee UNANIMOUSLY voted to not to use it in playoffs.  I ask: Why keep it in regular season?  The whole point of baseball should be earning bases not being given bases. 

 

And while I'm ranting a bit, how about doing away with the oven mitt for base runners? It's an unfair advantage to the runner to augment the hand with five fingers that God gave you.  I might call it is a performance enhancement and we don't like that, do we?  

 

Several minutes of our lives were wasted yesterday during a replay of whether Rays outfielder Josh Lowe was safe or out on a close play at the plate that would have given Tampa a big insurance run in the 9th inning.  Fortunately the Orioles won the challenge, but if Lowe had not been wearing the oven mitt, there would have been no doubt in real time that Adley Rutschman tagged him.

 

With 13 games left, the Orioles are assured a spot in the playoffs for the first time since 2016.  They hold in effect a 3-game lead on Tampa Bay because Birds won season series from Tampa 8-5. The Rays must play 6 with Toronto including the final 3 of regular season in Canada.  The Blue Jays could be a very dangerous team in playoffs and they will have much to play for since they are now leading for the second wild card over Texas with Seattle right behind Texas.  

 

The Orioles face a big hurdle starting tonight (Mon Sep 18) in Houston against the enigmatic defending champion Astros who have been only a .500

team at home this year.  In last week's post, I predicted wrongly that Houston had an advantage playing tailend KC and Oakland. Somehow the Astros managed to lose both series.  Yet the defending world champions are narrowly holding on to first place ahead of Texas and Seattle. 

 

Time will tell how the Orioles end the season and with what kind of momentum they enter the playoffs. I still love the cliche, "Momentum in baseball is the next day's starting pitcher."  Certainly after this past weekend, a split never seemed more sweet because the Rays had won the first 2 games, 4-3 and

7-0.

 

A rare Orioles 4-game losing streak was snapped on Sat night behind 8 shutout innings from highly-touted rookie Grayson Rodriguez, the longest outing of his young career. They took charge early led by rookie Gunnar Henderson's booming bat and won 8-0.  Then came the 5-4 Sunday classic. 

 

Tampa's rout on Fri night behind RHP Zack Eflin happened despite a capacity crowd that came out to honor center fielder Adam Jones who signed a one-day contract so he could retire as an Oriole.  I've never met Adam but he is a refreshing person, a Southern Californian originally signed by Seattle who spent much of his career in Baltimore. 

 

What Adam Jones does and says is worthy of our attention.  One of his great gestures came when Cedric Mullins arrived in Baltimore to take his place in center field. As Adam prepared to run out to right field, he let Cedric lead the team out onto the field.

 

A one-time number draft pick of the Mariners, Jones often cites the advice from the scout that signed him:  "You're only a number one draft pick for one day."   About the rise of the today's Orioles, Jones said this weekend, "There's nothing better than when you go through the mud and then you get out." 

 

That's all for now. By next post, I hope the NL wild card race has at least one team with a record 10 games above .500. The Phillies are pretty much set as number one WC but there is a fierce competition among Diamondbacks, Cubs, Marlins, and Reds with Giants now looking like long shots. 

 

The level of play hasn't been particularly distinguished, but it is exciting fans in the involved cities. NL.   Division winners LA Dodgers and Atlanta Braves have long ago clinched their titles.  The Dodgers swept Seattle on the road to make a statement while somehow the Braves were swept in Miami.

Milwaukee will soon clinch the NL Central ,but they will have to play the last wild card winner - no byes for the Brew Srew. 

 

Happy Autumn to all and always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and stay positive, test negative! 

 

During my non-commercial radio days in the 1980s, I made the acquaintance of the memorable publicist Irving Rudd. In his long career, he worked for many sports ventures including the Brooklyn Dodgers, Yonkers Raceway, and at the end for boxing honcho Bob Arum (BTW Arum was a graduate of Harvard Law School in the 1950s along with Dick Moss, a huge Pittsburgh Pirates fan who was the baseball-loving counsel for the nascent MLB Players Association under Marvin Miller.) 

 

Irving Rudd battled throat cancer for years but was always a vital and smiling presence on the sports scene.  When I asked him one day how he was doing, he rasped, "Bobbing and weaving."  It has become my stock answer for the age we are living in and for any baseball season.  . 

 

What a difference a week makes!  In my last blog, I praised Kyle Gibson's insights into starting pitching philosophy and he practiced what he preached in a sterling win against the Yankees.  His mentee Grayson Rodriguez did not listen or couldn't execute when he opened the Friday night home series against the resurgent Texas Rangers who seem for real under new manager Bruce Bochy.  

 

Rodriguez was sent down to Triple A Norfolk after giving up 9 runs in less than 4 innings. He's still only 23 and was drafted by the Dan Duquette regime out of high school in Texas. He joins DL Hall another high school signee from the previous

regime who has also yet to show consistency. 

 

One of the old adages of baseball is that you can't give up on young pitching, but right now the Oriole staff is being saved by the two horses in the bullpen, the Rock, Yennier Cano, a Cuban defector they obtained as a throw-in from the Twins in the Jorge Lopez trade last summer, and the Mountain, Felix Bautista who has emerged after more than a decade of toiling in the lower minors. 

 

The groin injury to Cedric Mullins suffered late in the Memorial Day shutout loss to Cleveland looks serious and he could be out for a considerable amount of time. The Birds' outfield depth in the minors will have to come to the rescue. The loss of Mullins will definitely be felt, but I think the Birds have shown enough resilience to stay in the divisional race. 

 

Youneverknow what will happen in baseball. Look at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Memorial Day.  The high-flying Rays who just had won a hard-fought series at home against the Dodgers - possible World Series preview? - got one-hit by former Met Marcus Stroman WHO THREW A COMPLETE GAME.  It can happen if the analytic-drenched brains controlling so many teams can let go for a while and watch the pitcher show mastery. 

 

Now, it's time for the rundown on what New York City-area and northeastern teams made the 64-team college baseball regionals leading to the 8-team College World Series starting in Omaha on June 16. 

All double elimination regionals will start on Fri June 2 and will be televised on some ESPN platform. 

 

**Army plays top-seeded Virginia at Noon on ESPN+ - E. Carolina and Oklahoma are also in regional.

 

**Ivy League winner Penn plays at Auburn on 7p on ESPN+ with Southern Miss. and Samford also in regional.

 

**Central Conn. St from New Britain plays at South Carolina with Campbell (Cedric Mullins' alma mater) & NC State.

 

**Rider from Trenton NJ plays at Coastal Carolina at 7p on ESPN+ with Duke and UNC-Wilmington in same regional.

 

**UConn, a rare #2 from Northeast, plays #3 Texas Tech at Florida at 1p on ESPNU with #1 Gators playing Florida A & M  Hall of Famer Andre Dawson's alma mater - I tell the story of signing of Dawson by scout Mel Didier in my new book BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES. 

 

**In a rare #2=#3 matchup of eastern teams, Maryland, Big Ten champion, and Northeastern, coached by Michael

Glavine, Hall of Famer Tom Glavine's brother, at 1p on ESPN+  Host Wake Forest plays George Mason in other game-

 

**Finally, Maine faces U of Miami at Miami at 7p ESPN+ with Texas and Louisiana (the former Louisiana-Lafayette) also in regional. 

 

Last but not least here is the quarter-final lineup for the PSAL high school playoffs on Tu May 30 at 330p

#1 Luperon from Upper Manhattan hosts South Bronx at Randall's Island Field 20 

#2 Tottenville hosts John Jay at its Staten Island field

#3 Monroe hosts Inwood at Mike Turo Field on the Monroe campus in east Bronx near 177th Street

#4 George Washington hosts #5 Grand Street of Brooklyn (Dellin Betances' alma mater)

 

The semi-finals will be best two out of three at higher seed's field over the weekend of June 2-3-4.

The final will be at Yankee Stadium on Mon June 12.  There will also be the AA final at that time.

 

That's all for now.  One cultural note - the new production of Mozart's last opera "The Magic Flute" can be seen

through June 10.  The music remains sublime and the production is both lively and profound. 

Last performances are W May 31 at 730p,  Sat Jun 3 at 1p (broadcast on national radio),  Tu June 6 at 730p, Th June 8 at 730p, and final performance of season for the Met, Sa Jun 10 at 730p   More info at metopera.org  

 

Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and these days especially, stay positive test negative.