Orioles Sweep Nats, Atkins DFA'd

The Orioles won their, season-high, fourth game in a row today with a 4-3 win over the Washington Nationals. What made this sweep so great was that all three games were come-from-behind victories. The Orioles overcame 6-0, 5-0 and 3-0 deficits to win each game by one run in the late innings.

Today the Orioles were again aided by the Nats' major-league-worst defense. Adam Kennedy attempted an ill-advised attempt at a double play in the fifth inning which would lead to Matt Wieters to cross the plate and score the tying run. The Orioles were no aces on the the field themselves today. No errors were charged but Adam Jones got eaten-up by a hooking line drive hit right at him in the third inning. The misplay would allow Washington left-fielder Josh Willingham an RBI triple. Willingham would later score on Roger Bernadina's two-run shot off of Jeremy Guthrie.

Guthrie had another solid, if unremarkable, outing. Guts went six innings giving up three runs, keeping the Orioles in the game and never letting things get out of hand. The Oroles bullpen took care of the rest with three innings of scoreless, drama-free ball. The Birds' pen had a fantastic weekend playing pitching 12 innings and not giving up a single run.

Jones redeemed himself with an RBI double during the Orioles fifth inning rally. After a Wieters single Jones would score on a Scott Moore RBI single.

The Orioles' big heroes of the day were Miguel Tejada who roped a two-out single to score the game-winning run in the bottom of the eighth and David Hernandez for his work in the top of the inning. Hernandez came into the game with one out and two on relieving Will Ohman and David responded in one of the most impressive displays I have seen this year. David threw six pitches, and got two stirke-outs to end the inning. Hernandez blew six fastballs past Josh Willingham and Roger Bernadina to put an exclamation point on a great weekend for the pen.

>>> Read More