Orioles’ 1B Chris Davis Defeats Red Sox OF Darnell McDonald in 17 Innings
One of the beautiful things about baseball is you never know when you will see something that you have never seen before. In the case of Sunday’s game that involved the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox, we saw a 17 inning marathon before the Orioles won the game. While I’ve seen numerous 17 inning games before, I can’t ever recall seeing a game where two position players are the pitchers of record.
Orioles’ 1B/DH Chris Davis was the winning pitcher of the ballgame, although he grounded into a double play and struck out five times. Red Sox outfielder Darnell McDonald earned the loss after he allowed a 3-run home run to Adam Jones, in which I said if he gets a strike, Jones might hit it 800 feet. Well, he got a strike and hit it over the monster.
Chris Davis was topping out around 89 – which is about as hard as Tim Lincecum is throwing nowadays – while McDonald was topping out around 83. The highlight of the duel was when Chris Davis struck out Adrian Gonzalez on a 2-seam fastball. I’m just assuming it was a 2-seam because it had some sweet movement. After the strikeout of Gonzalez, Davis induced the losing pitching (McDonald) into a double play. Davis is the first American League positional player to win a game since Rocky Colavito did it in 1968.
Lost in the craziness of this game is the emergence of the Baltimore Orioles. This week might have been the greatest week that happened to the Orioles since the mid-90s. They took 2 of 3 against the New York Yankees, including a nationally televised Wednesday night game. And now with a weekend sweep of the Boston Red Sox, the Orioles record stands at 19-9. Oh by the way, that 19-9 record is the best in the American League.
That’s right. The Baltimore Orioles are the best team in the American League. I just felt the need to say that twice to emphasize how crazy that is. In other news, the Boston Red Sox still stink and have dropped five in a row.
