Time to go win some road games

[MurphDogg]

I am not too worried about it. I don't see winning on the road as a separate distinguishable skill. The O's happened to have had a tougher road schedule to start the season. Most of our upcoming road games are against lesser teams.

[Machado13]

Hope to see you there!

I will most likely be right behind Os dugout in machado shirt and home cap. Of course, it will be easy for me to spot a famous media personality

[Nevermore]

Kershaw is amazing, but if anyone can defy the odds and beat him, it's these Orioles.

And they actually have to play the game. So you never know.

[wildcard]

Is this the O's high point of the year?

The O's have played 44 games at home going 31-13 for a .704 win pct.

The O have play 31 games on the raod going 14-17 for a .451 win pct.

They will play 37 games at home the rest of the season and 50 on the road.

If they win at the same percentages they will end with an 89-73 record and a .549 win percentage.

So is this the O's high point of the season in terms of win percentage?

[wildcard]

My magic 8 ball says "not if they win their next game"

I like that thinking.

Few words for you.

Ubaldo

Trumbo and Kim in Petco's outfield

14-17 on the road

[bluedog]

I am not too worried about it. I don't see winning on the road as a separate distinguishable skill. The O's happened to have had a tougher road schedule to start the season. Most of our upcoming road games are against lesser teams.

This. It's not like the O's have been terrible on the road. They are only 3 games below .500 and that was against mostly strong opponents.

And I think the O's bats play anywhere. 430 foot shots are home runs in any park in the league.

[bluedog]

Is this the O's high point of the year?

The O's have played 44 games at home going 31-13 for a .704 win pct.

The O have play 31 games on the raod going 14-17 for a .451 win pct.

They will play 37 games at home the rest of the season and 50 on the road.

If they win at the same percentages they will end with an 89-73 record and a .549 win percentage.

So is this the O's high point of the season in terms of win percentage?

After the next 19 games, 16 of which are on the road, the O's will have 34 games at home and 34 games on the road left to play. They face some weak teams over the next three weeks and they need to take advantage of that despite being on the road. If we get through this stretch 11 - 8 or better, I think we'll in great shape for the stretch run and we'll have a balanced schedule the rest of the way out.

I say no - it's not the high point.

[bluedog]

I hope we dont get no hit vs him(likely it will be the Wednesday game). Hes everything we usually don't hit well..deceptive,lefty, tremendous breaking pitches and change..and we dont get a DH either. Forget it.I'll be there to eat crow if we win..but its not happening.

He was beaten last night by the Pirates equivalent of Tyler Wilson.

Apparently all you have to do to beat Kershaw is drive a remote controlled truck around him during pre-game warmups.

[bluedog]

Now it's your turn to explain HOW. How can the O's defy the odds? Do they have a history this season of taking down TOR pitchers? You said if ANY team could do it, it's this one. Does our lineup matchup well against such a left-handed pitcher with the stuff Kershaw possesses? If we demand accountability of our journalists, we must in turn, do the same. Roy did a good job explaining WHY he didn't believe the Orioles matched up well taking into account pitching style of his, being on the road for the O's and their historical struggles against such a pitcher.

roflmao. Okay...

But first, you're going to argue that none of the pitchers I use as examples are as good as Kershaw, but since no one is as good as Kershaw, it's impossible to find an exact comp. But there are some very good parallels that indicate this O's team can beat pitchers that have been dominant against other O's teams or against the league for long periods of time.

For our first example you have to go back all the way to yesterday.

Exhibit #1 - Drew Smyly: Junk balling lefty with a career 1.82 ERA against previous Orioles teams. This team lit him up for 8 runs in 5 IPs.

Exhibit #2 - David Price: Dominant lefty that came into his first start against the O's this year on a 19 - 5 streak with a 2.45 ERA over his previous 24 decisions. These O's beat him, scoring more runs in fewer innings than any team in the prior 254 days. They then beat him for a 2nd time on 6/14 by out pitching him as Tillman beat him straight up in a pitchers duel.

And that only took about 15 minutes of searching to find. I know there are several other examples of the O's beating up on dominant pitchers this year, but I have to get to work, so that's the best I can do right now.

[eddie83]

I like that thinking.

Few words for you.

Ubaldo

Trumbo and Kim in Petco's outfield

14-17 on the road

They face a lefty on Wednesday. Perhaps give Davis the day off and play Trumbo at 1st. Maybe give Trumbo a day or 2 off this trip as well.

[eddie83]

I am not too worried about it. I don't see winning on the road as a separate distinguishable skill. The O's happened to have had a tougher road schedule to start the season. Most of our upcoming road games are against lesser teams.

This team mashes home runs. This month a bunch of home games and other hitter friendly parks. Our skill set doesn't match as well in these stadiums.

[Frobby]

Now it's your turn to explain HOW. How can the O's defy the odds? Do they have a history this season of taking down TOR pitchers? You said if ANY team could do it, it's this one. Does our lineup matchup well against such a left-handed pitcher with the stuff Kershaw possesses? If we demand accountability of our journalists, we must in turn, do the same. Roy did a good job explaining WHY he didn't believe the Orioles matched up well taking into account pitching style of his, being on the road for the O's and their historical struggles against such a pitcher.

As much as we'd like to pretend it is, baseball isn't science. Kershaw is a great pitcher, but he loses sometimes. The O's are a very capable offensive team, better than many of the offenses Kershaw faces. So maybe we'll beat him. Nobody can saw what will happen with any degree of certainty.

The O's have a .793 OPS vs. LH starters, compared to .806 vs. RH starters. That's a negligible difference.

Honestly, I don't know what Kershaw's "pitching style" is that we have any experience with. But the truth is, we do very well against finesse pitchers (.920 OPS) and pretty well against pitchers who combine power and finesse (.771). We have trouble with pure power pitchers (.648), and that's not what Kershaw is.

Bottom line, if Kershaw is on his game, we will struggle to score runs, like every other team in the majors. But if he makes a few mistakes, we have a team that can punish them.

Any by the way, that's the last game of the road trip. Why don't we worry about the other 8 games first?

[bpilktree]

I would make a trade for Chris Stewart from the Pirates the game before. He is the Jeff Reboluet for Randy Johnson. He has a batting average over .500 vs him.

In all honesty it will be tough but I think we have the best guy pitching for us with a chance to win. Gausman is the one guy that if on his game can shut down teams. He also seems to pitch up to his mound opponent. He gave up just 1 run in the game he pitched against Archer Tampa's ace, He threw a shutout in the start against Tanaka and gave up just 1 in the start against a red hot Sabathia.

[bpilktree]

I would make a trade for Chris Stewart from the Pirates the game before. He is the Jeff Reboluet for Randy Johnson. He has a batting average over .500 vs him.

In all honesty it will be tough but I think we have the best guy pitching for us with a chance to win. Gausman is the one guy that if on his game can shut down teams. He also seems to pitch up to his mound opponent. He gave up just 1 run in the game he pitched against Archer Tampa's ace, He threw a shutout in the start against Tanaka and gave up just 1 in the start against a red hot Sabathia.

Gausman has given up 1 run or less in 18 of his 54 starts in his career. He has 55 starts but one was a game that rained and he left early.

[HelenaEngineer]

While I understand that he would pitch on Wednesday against the Orioles if he stays on his normal 4 days rest, I think there is a not insignificant chance that he does take an extra day and pitches on Thursday instead. Issue is that he will only get 2 starts before the break anyway. I am sure they would want him to pitch no later than Thursday since he would likely start the All-Star game, but if he starts Wednesday, he has 5 days off before pitching an inning or two in the All-Star game and then several more days off. They might prefer to shorten that long period by a day and have a little rest on the front end, so the break is not quite as disruptive.