vs. RAYS, 4/09

Baltimore Orioles (4-0) vs. Tampa Bay Devil Rays (2-3)

Streak / L10

BAL: N/A

TBR: N/A

*2015 stats will be used for now

Game 2 (7:05)

(QS=0)Mike Wright (3-5) 6.04 (1.57/.291), 26/18 (9HR)

vs.

(QS=0)Drew Smyly (5-2) 3.11 (1.17/.230), 77/20 (11HR)

Mike Wright: Wright was god awful last year after his first three starts and ended the season with the numbers above and a -0.2 WAR to go with it in 44.2 innings. I'm not sure he needs much of an analysis to know that it's all bad. Lefties crush him and righties do well, too. This will be Wright's debut against the D-Rays and will look to begin making last year's performances a thing of the past with a good start here. I am not all that optimistic he will pull it off, but I hope to be proven wrong.

Splits & Sits

101 vs. left: .322/.386/.475, 4HR

103 vs. right: .258/.350/.437, 5HR

Bases Empty: .261

RISP: .289

RISP w/2 outs: .150

Men on w/2 outs: .241

Man on 3rd, < 2 outs: .222

2015 Home (5 starts, 2 relief)

(2-2) 6.08 (1.39/.276), 6HR

Career vs. TBR (0 starts)

N/A

vs. Batter

Hank Conger 1/1, 2B, BB

Drew Smyly: Smyly's 2015 season was shortened due to a torn labrum and when he returned to make 12 starts, he pitched to a 1.6 WAR with a 3.11 (1.17). He posted a 3.8 WAR in 2014 as well. Smyly is a very tough guy to beat though he is prone to giving up home runs, but all 11 last year came against righties. Lefties have next to zero chance against Smyly.

There's really no getting around it; Smyly dominates the Orioles and is undefeated in eight appearances (five starts) with a 4-0 record and has routinely reduced the Orioles lineup to a bunch of amateurs. It's even worse when the unfortunate meeting comes at Camden Yards for Smyly who was generally better on the road than at home. The one ray of hope is in Smyly's first start of this year. He allowed five runs on six hits (3HR) and a walk in 6.2 innings against Toronto and took the loss.

Pitch wise, Smyly holds offenses in lock down in all but two intervals; pitches 46-60 (.316/.395/.558) and 76-90 (.256/.293/.439). In the rare case Smyly gets past 105 pitches, it's .500/2.000/2.000 on only two batters faced last year. They went 1-for-2 with a HR.

Splits & Sits

56 vs. left: .157/.232/.250

219 vs. right: .249/.411/.303, 11HR

Bases Empty: .242, 7HR

RISP: .200

RISP w/2 outs: .125

Men on w/2 outs: .200

Man on 3rd < 2 outs: .200

2015 Away (7 starts)

(3-2) 2.70 (1.13/.229), 7HR

Career vs Baltimore (5 starts, 3 relief)

(4-0) 1.82 (0.81/.152), 5HR

Career @ Camden Yards (3 starts, 1 relief)

(2-0) 0.82 (0.77/.156), 2HR

vs. Batter

Adam Jones (18 AB) .111, HR, RBI, 7K

Chris Davis (16 AB) .125, 2 S-HR, 10K

Jonathan Schoop (12 AB) .167, 2B

J.J. Hardy 1/9, HR, 3RBI

Manny Machado 2/9, 2B

Caleb Joseph 3/8

Mark Trumbo 1/6

Nolan Reimold 0/6

Matt Wieters 2/5, 2B

Pedro Alvarez 0/2, 2K, BB

At least we know who has the better Chris now. Archer absolutely got pounded last night as the Orioles once again get the better of him. We had a lot of good AB's particularly the Wieters AB which either tired him out, shook his confidence or both as someone pointed out in the game thread. It didn't help matters that he also took a line drive to the body towards the end of his innings.

Tillman looked pretty good despite not having the supercharged stuff he had on opening day, but as long as he can stay in the low 90's, there won't be any issues. Didn't have his curveball consistently, but his change up was really working for him for five solid innings. Great job by McFarland in relief. I've never seen his stuff look so good. I'm not a big TJM fan, but it left me wanting to see if he can do that again and will be looking forward to his next appearance. With Matusz returning, I hope he doesn't get sent down just yet.

It was good seeing Reimold hit one out, but the best part about it was he hit it out to right center. Nolan has very good opposite field power and I'm glad that he never abandoned that approach. If he can stay healthy, he's going to impact this club maybe more than anyone could have seen coming. That is, of course, a BIG IF. Also, CD is looking much better than I expected him to look. He may earn that contract after all. He's really on it so far this year and it's great to see.

Drew Smyly may be just a soft tosser, but he has shut down the Orioles every time we've faced him. He's got great stuff, but he had a horrible first outing against Toronto. With Mike Wright going for us, it doesn't instill a whole lot of confidence. On the other hand, I don't think I'd be too surprised if Wright turned in a solid performance. The Orioles are hot out of the gate and are riding a huge wave of momentum as they set out to prove the baseball world wrong yet again. I have to keep reminding myself that it's only four games, but early on, I'm impressed with what I see and I didn't expect to see it. Let's see how long this wave of momentum will take us and when it comes to an end, how far down will the fall back to earth be? Let's enjoy it while it lasts!

Smyly.

I'd like to buy a vowel.

Surprised I haven't seen it mentioned, but our current 9 game regular season winning streak is our longest since a 13 game winning streak in 1999.

Also worth noting that combining spring training and regular season, the Orioles' have not suffered a loss since March 23, 17 days ago.

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Hardy and Jones out of the lineup tonight. Wieters and Joseph in the lineup. Flash in too. No Alvarez, no Kim.

Hardy with the left calf. Said he could go if needed to, but you know if he played he would score 2 runs from 2nd base tonight.

(He's done an awful lot of running the bases already)

Rickard

Nolan

Manny

Davis

Trumbo

Wieters

Schoop

Joseph

Flaherty

Joe Angel said last night that the longest O's season opening win streak is 5 games, set in 1970.

Manny brought it up!

[video=youtube;X2CRtdrIMQE]

I like Dempsey's tie and handkerchief. Purple Haze baby!

Davis says still on for 7:05 start. Was snowing pretty hard but sunny here when I ran out for beer. I looked for a snowbow but didn't see one.

We have the more favorable bend of the jet stream out here in OR. I just mowed the lawn and cracked open a beer to hydrate. It is 70 degrees and a cloudless baby blue sky.

Delay.

Seems silly to try and get this in when it is a division foe.

It is not like they would go and move the makeup game to the Trop or something.

Seems silly to try and get this in when it is a division foe.

It is not like they would go and move the makeup game to the Trop or something.

I looked at Baltimore forecast. By 9:00 or so should be all clear.

Seems silly to try and get this in when it is a division foe.

It is not like they would go and move the makeup game to the Trop or something.

Well played, sir.

Roch changed the title of his latest. "7:40 start time"