Posted Messages

Message #: 25057
Message from: Charlie Steinhice
Sent: Oct 10, 2011
Subject: BAA @ OAA Week 14 (and Week 15 CM)

Cellar-dwelling Baltimore came to contending Oakland and split an exciting four-game series.

Game 1: OAA 5, BAA 4

This was an exciting seesaw affair where every RBI came with two out. Craig Worthington’s second inning homer off Oakland’s Bob Welch drove in someone who looked a lot like Cal Ripken Jr., giving the Orioles an early 2-0 lead. (Cal had his last multi-hit game on the road on June 10^th, almost a month ago.) Jim Sundberg tied it up in the 4^th with a two-out, two-run single off Baltimore’s Jeff Ballard, but the O’s went back ahead in the 6^th when Worthington touched up A’s reliever Dave Smith with a two-out, two-run single of his own. But Jose Canseco hit a juicy three-run blast off Cecilio Guante in the 8^th with, yep, two out to put the A’s back on top for good.

Amusing sidelight: Bill Ripken’s 4^th inning error let brother Cal (or the body snatcher wearing his uniform) take second. When asked if he could confirm or deny which one it was, Bill referred all questions to the knob of the bat on his baseball card for this season.*

Game 2: BAA 14, OAA 13 (10)

No one from either team reached base in the eighth, and Oakland’s starting shortstop Kevin Elster went hitless. Other than that….

The Orioles struck first again, thanks to Craig Biggio’s sac fly in the first, but a Worthington error in the 3^rd opened the door for the A’s to take a 2-1 lead. In the 4^th, Jose Gonzalez’s two-run homer off Baltimore’s Jim Abbott upped the lead to 4-1. Things got more complicated in a wild 5^th inning. First Dave Stewart gave up a game-tying three-run bomb to Mike Devereaux (that’s one way to keep Devereaux from chalking up another Caught Stealing). Gonzalez threw Biggio out at home to deprive C. Ripken of a rare RBI, but Randy Milligan drove in Cal to give Baltimore a 5-4 lead, which only lasted until Mark McGwire clearly creamed an RBI single in the bottom of the frame. McGwire then scored on Sundberg’s first and probably last triple of the year to put Oakland back ahead 6-5. The seesaw tilted again in the top of the 6^th, as Franklin Stubbs chased Stewart with a game-tying RBI double and scored on another double by Biggio for a 7-6 Orioles lead. Then came the Orioles bullpen… and four runs in the bottom of the 6^thfor a 10-7 A’s lead. Then came the A’s bullpen, and a four-run rally for Baltimore in the 7^th highlighted by a two-run Devereaux single. (The go-ahead run was driven in by some guy wearing Silent Cal’s uniform.) Oakland could only muster an RBI groundout to tie the game at 11 after seven complete. Baltimore’s two-run ninth saw Joe Orsulak’s second triple of the game and another RBI hit by the Ripken impostor; Oakland’s two-run ninth saw the inning open with back-to-back pinch-hit doubles off usually reliable closer Gregg Olson. And in a game that saw a combined 39 hits, 10 walks, and an error, the decisive blow was… Gene Nelson’s wild pitch in the 10^th to give Baltimore the victory as Olson closed the door on his second try.

The guy wearing #8 for Baltimore went 4-for-5 with two RBIs, leading some to wonder if the real Cal Ripken Jr. might have escaped from his alien abductors.

Game 3: BAA 9, OAA 6

Cal-or-not-Cal started the scoring with an RBI double off Curt Young and scored on a Keith Moreland single to stake Baltimore starter Pete Harnisch to a 2-0 first inning lead. The teams traded runs in the 2^nd, as Cory Snyder’s solo HR was offset by a Carney Lansford triple and an RBI single by Terry Steinbach. Both pitchers survived third-inning threats and pitched 1-2-3 innings in the 4^th and 5^th. In the 6^th, a solo Keith Moreland homer and back-to-back walks sent Young to the showers trailing 4-1. Innings-conscious Orioles manager Charlie Steinhice pulled Harnisch for Dennis Cook in the 7^th; Cook surrendered a two-run homer to Tommy Herr and left with the game tied 4-4 and two runners in scoring position. Guante closed that door but opened another one in the eighth; Bob McClure then yielded a two-out, two-run single to Herr to put Oakland ahead 6-4. But the Orioles came back in the ninth against closer Tim Burke with a solo Franklin Stubbs homer and a clutch two-out RBI single by… could that really be Cal Ripken? After Mark Williamson came in to halt an A’s rally in the bottom of the 9^th, he wound up with the win thanks to Devereaux’s bases-clearing double in the 10^th.

Game 4: OAA 6, BAA 2

For the fourth straight game, Baltimore drew first blood, although it took them until the fourth to get a run off Mike Moore courtesy of Larry Sheets’ RBI single. Harold Baines evened the score at 1-1 in the bottom of the inning with a solo HR off Dave Schmidt, and his 5^th inning double following an RBI single by Herr gave the A’s a 4-1 lead after 5. Schmidt gave way to Mark Thurmond, who fared no better, giving up a two-run homer to Carney Lansford in the 6^th. The Orioles mounted threat after threat but could only score on a solo Joe Orsulak homer in the 9^th. The A’s turned two double plays, and the O’s stranded twelve runners. The guy wearing #8 hit into one of those double plays and stranded several of those runners, so it apparently was Cal Ripken all along.

Weird stat #1: Ripken went 10-for 18 to raise his road BA by 35 points (from .172 to .207).

Weird stat #2: Herr, who had 28 RBIs for the year through last week, increased his total by 25% thanks to the seven he tallied in the last three games.

* (http://www.cnbc.com/id/28116692/Billy_Ripken_Obscenity_Bat_He_Finally_Talks_20_Years_Later)


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