O's Jump Out Early, Hang On Late - N51_rob's Blog

N51_rob's Blog

O's Jump Out Early, Hang On Late

Posted on April 18, 2012 at 12:21 PM.

(0)

Chicago, IL The Baltimore Orioles remained perfect on the road, but it wasn't easy, as the O's let a 6-0 lead slip away before Jim Johnson was able to shut the door and secure a 6-5 victory over the White Sox in front of 26,000 fans on the south side Monday. The win was Baltimore's 4th straight road win.

The Orioles coming off a sweep of Toronto, looked to continue their hot road start. Nolan Reimold started the game off with a double off starter Phillip Humber (1-1, 7.84). He would score later on a SAC fly by RF Nick Markakis to give Baltimore an early 1-0 lead. Baltimore would extend their lead in the 4th innings when the long ball started flying for Baltimore. Wlison Betemit hit a solo shot to left center to extend the lead to 3-0. That was followed by Chris Davis' 2 run home run to right that landed in the Bull Penn grill. Reimold would close out the Oriole homer fest with a solo shot to right to give Baltimore a commanding 6-0 leaf after four and a half innings.

Oriole starter Wei-Yin Chen (1-0 2.07), pitched a beautiful game. He kept Chicago off balance and off the score board for the first three innings before, allowing a run to score in the 4th on a Brent Morel double in the 4th. Another run would score in the 5th. This brought the score to 6-2. Which was important because Baltimore's bats went cold after the 4th mustering 2 hits over the last 5.1 innings. Chen would go 7 innings allowing 8 hits 2 earned with 2 Ks. He recorded his first quality start of the season, and was well positioned for the win. "He did a good job of hitting his spots and working out of jams. You could tell batters were never comfortable in there against him." Buck Showalter said after the game.

Things got interesting in the 8th inning. Baltimore brought in setup man Matt Lindstrom who had yet to allow a run. In his previous 4.2 innings he had allowed only 2 hits and 0 runs. Lindstrom ran into trouble almost immediately. White Sox batters were jumping on first pitch fastballs, and he couldn't get his secondary pitches over for strikes. Linsdstrom labored through 33 pitches working only recording only 2 outs in the 8th. Alejandro De Aza brought the 3rd White Sox run in on a seeing eye single to make it 6-3. Morel's second RBI came on a ball that made it through on the right side of the infield to make it 6-4. Alexi Rios lined into center to plate another run and make it 6-5. Lindstrom was pulled in favor of Darren O'Day who recorded the final out of the 8th with runners at 1sr and 2nd. Jim Johnson game in and gave up one hit before finally shutting the door for the save his 3rd of the year.

Highlights