A pitching-led weekend sweep for the Orioles in Cincy.
CINCINNATI – Before Sunday’s game, first-year Orioles pitching Drew French met with reporters, who of course asked about the recent great run of O’s pitching.
Then they went out and recorded another scoreless start and held the Cincinnati Reds to three hits and one run in Sunday’s 11-1 win to complete a three-game sweep
In the series in Cincinnati, O’s starters pitched 19 1/3 scoreless allowing just six hits. In the series, O’s pitchers gave up two runs and 11 hits with five walks to 26 strikeouts.
The team ERA is down to 3.31. That ranks fifth-best both in the American League and in MLB.
What has been the key to this amazing run, French was asked?
“I think our ability to be really relentless in how we attack hitters,” he said. “We’ve gotten a fair amount of groundballs recently, but I think we’re just putting pressure on the hitters in the at-bats. And you know, when you get hitters kind of feeling uncomfortable that is when they are more apt to chase, and we can make pitches with two strikes and get the results that we want. And the swings that we want. So, manipulating bat speed and being ahead in the count I think is premium.”
After John Means’ great outing Saturday, catcher James McCann gave his take on the pitchers: “They are coming out and they’re executing the game plans. The game plans are great right now and the execution might be even better.”
The Orioles have surrendered two runs or fewer in each of the last seven games, their longest such streak within a single season since an eight-game run from Aug. 1-Aug. 8, 1980.
During this stretch, the team has allowed eight runs total with a team ERA of 1.14 the past seven games, an opponent batting average of .154 and a .455 OPS against.
Over the last 14 games, 10 times the O’s allowed two runs or fewer with a team ERA of 2.14 and 32 runs allowed.
“I think the one thing is that you want to take the strengths of every guy into consideration when you kind of dive into what the game plan against certain hitters is going to be,” said French.
“But what this pitching staff has is a ton of versatility,” he added. “So, the ability to beat guys in different ways and get three times through the order. That’s a huge part of the conversation, especially over the last five or ten years and we have guys that have different pitch types and different strengths. But their ability to do different things the second and third time through is what maximizes each individual guy.”
During the series in Cincinnati, on Friday Cole Irvin threw 6 1/3 scoreless on two hits, then Saturday Means gave up three hits in seven scoreless and Sunday Dean Kremer pitched six shutout innings allowing one hit.
