Baltimore Orioles manager Brandon Hyde had a simple message for his team after rolling up season highs for hits (20) and runs in a 14-1 laugher over the New York Yankees on Thursday night.
“It doesn’t mean anything tomorrow,” Hyde said. “Tomorrow is a new day and we’re facing a really good Twins team with really good starting pitching. This game is over with at this point.”
Hyde and the Orioles know all too well the challenge they’ll be facing on Friday when they open a three-game series with American League Central-leading Minnesota in Minneapolis.
The Twins won two of three games in Baltimore last weekend, allowing a total of three runs and 12 hits. The Orioles managed to win the series finale, 2-1, on Sunday by scoring two runs in the bottom of the eighth inning. Jordan Westburg was on the receiving end of a 101.3 mph fastball from reliever Jhoan Duran with the bases loaded to force across the game-winning run.
After losing the first two games at New York, Baltimore rebounded to win the final two contests to earn a split of the series — outscoring the Yankees, 20-4, in the process.
“After two games of kind of not our best baseball we played two really good games,” Hyde said. “That’s a good feeling going into Minnesota.”
Not such a good feeling is the fact the Orioles will be facing 6-foot-9 right-hander Bailey Ober (5-4, 2.70 ERA) in Friday night’s opener.
Ober was outstanding in his last start, a 1-0 victory at Baltimore last Saturday that saw him hold the Orioles to just a pair of singles over seven innings while striking out eight. Joey Gallo’s fourth-inning homer proved to be the difference in the contest.
“That was a ‘wow’ game and performance,” Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli said of Ober’s lone career start against Baltimore. “That was the best I’ve ever seen him throw.
“It was almost a perfect outing, just watching him go to work like that. It was great. I can just keep talking about it. It was phenomenal.”
Hyde had similar things to say about shortstop Gunnar Henderson after Thursday’s win over the Yankees.
Henderson, the American League’s Rookie of the Month for June, finished 4-for-7 with two home runs and five RBIs with all four hits coming during the first four innings while Baltimore built a 13-0 lead. He became the first major league player to have four hits and two homers in the first four innings of a game since Matt Carpenter accomplished the feat for the St. Louis Cardinals against the Chicago Cubs on July 20, 2018.
“That was amazing,” Hyde said. “To be able to go opposite field (for a home run down the left-field line) like he did in the top of the first, just spraying the ball around hard. A really exciting young player with a ton of tools.”
Left-hander Cole Irvin (1-3, 6.32) will start the opener for the Orioles, who trail the AL East-leading Tampa Bay Rays by four games heading into their final series before the All-Star break.
Irvin is 0-0 with a 1.54 ERA in two career starts against the Twins, including a one-run, six-hit effort over five innings in Sunday’s 2-1 victory.
–Field Level Media
