I can’t think of a funnier visual at a baseball game than standing by the bullpen to see the most talented player in the history of the sport stretching about ten feet away from his opposing starter, some guy wearing #75.
A crowd at the bullpen formed as soon as the gates opened to try to get a good glimpse at Shohei Ohtani, who was pitching at Camden Yards for the first time in his career. And while he got loose before heading into the bullpen, his opposing starter was doing the same a short distance away from him.
Chris Ellis wasn’t expected to spend too long on the mound, with Brandon Hyde saying it’d be a bullpen game but still, it felt incredible that this guy was tasked with beginning a game where the opposing pitcher also had 40 homers and was batting leadoff. Ellis had five career innings entering Wednesday night and he was going to be the first of several pitchers tasked with avoiding a 20-game losing streak against a player that almost seemed fictional.
And just as we all expected, Ellis ended the night in the winning dugout and Ohtani didn’t.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
I don’t think Ellis deserves too much credit for his appearance on Wednesday, allowing three runs in three innings to make his Baltimore Orioles ERA 9.00 but still, he was the opposing starter who ended the losing streak against the future AL MVP. Remarkable things happen in a 162-game sample.
It felt like all the bad luck and misfortune from the losing streak was channeled into neutralizing both Ohtani the hitter and the pitcher in Baltimore on Wednesday as they defeated the Los Angeles Angels.
Ohtani went 0-for-4, striking out three or more times for just the 13th time in the 123 games he had taken a plate appearance this year. Perhaps even more remarkably, it was the first time he had ever allowed multiple homers on the mound. In his 30 prior starts, the ball never left the yard more than once and then the Orioles homered twice just in the first inning, with DJ Stewart adding a third for good measure later in the game.
However, it still didn’t feel like that’d be enough to snap the losing streak after they trailed 6-4 entering the bottom of the seventh despite one of Ohtani’s worst games of his career. At one point, I tweeted that if they lost this game I hoped they would just move to Nashville so I could stop worrying about the team. It was largely a joke…but not entirely.
And yet by the end of the night, I was much less enthusiastic about the idea of the Nashville Orioles. They got a run in the bottom of the seventh and channeled 19 games of frustration into a 5-run burst in the bottom of eighth to take the lead. Tyler Wells retired the side in order in the top of the ninth and for the first time since there was a cat on the field at Yankee Stadium, the Orioles were winners.
The overwhelming feeling at the final out was relief, but I want to focus on the disbelief instead. At a certain point during the streak, it started to seem impossible they’d win, where seeing how they’d lose became performance art. The final four games of the losing streak do an excellent job proving this point.
They began the Braves series by only allowing three runs, only to see the opposing pitcher get a complete game shutout in under 100 pitches, known as Maddux. A Braves pitcher accomplishing something named after the franchise’s best pitcher just felt like an inevitable part of how the losing streak was going.
They followed up the Maddux with a one-run loss and ended the series with a wasted quality start from John Means. The fact that the Orioles moved to 2-10 in Means starts since the no-hitter felt par for the course.
After a series with solid pitching and poor offense, they decided to flip the switch by losing 14-8 to start the Angels series. Eight runs will normally win you plenty of baseball games, but not when your pitching staff is responsible for 12 runs in the first four innings. If they spent the season alternating 12-11 and 2-1 losses the rest of the year I don’t think I would’ve actually felt surprised.
I also had the feeling of disbelief that they’d ever reward the players who were productive during this streak.
When you lose 19 games in a row your roster is generally going through some struggles, but there were still multiple players who seemed like Sisyphus pushing the boulder, playing well in a futile effort.
Anthony Santander had a 1.047 OPS during the streak and Ryan Mountcastle continued his Rookie of the Year campaign with a 1.142 OPS during the 19-game journey. Jorge Mateo, who I previously wrote about, provided a .879 OPS and electric speed while having the terrible misfortune of joining the Orioles from San Diego during the early days of the streak.
Of course, not everyone was as productive as this trio but still, it felt like they were doing all this losing while still having proof that there were real major leaguers on this roster. This didn’t feel like the 2018 post-deadline lineups that featured names you’ve probably forgotten like John Andreoli and Breyvic Valera.
The Orioles carried the momentum from Wednesday into getting back-to-back wins thanks to the best start of Keegan Akin’s career and now will spend the weekend playing the Tampa Bay Rays for the final time this season.
Maybe they’ll go on a winning streak, maybe they won’t. Either way, I still can’t believe we’re done worrying about this miserable stretch because they beat the most talented player the sport has ever seen.
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).