Standings
The O's are at 49-41, third place in the AL East. They're 4.5 GB from first and half a game ahead of the Yankees.
Results
The O's had a pretty bad week at 2-5. They went 1-2 against the White Sox, 1-2 against the Yankees, and lost the first game of a four-game set with the Rangers.
Runs Scored
23, or 3.28 per game. Not good. The team as a whole hit .2165/.262/.345a wOBA of .264. That kind of line will lead to a lot of close games and, err, losses.
Runs Allowed
27, or 3.85 per game, which is pretty good. It's not elite, but definitely better than their average coming into this week, even if the eight runs they allowed to Texas don't go down easy.
Best Hitter/Worst Hitter
Among qualified hitters, Nick Markakis was easily the week's best hitter, with a .372 wOBA. That's what 11 hits and 2 walks in 27 PA will do.
Honorable mention: Matt Wieters jacked two dingers and walked twice in 21 PA, which contributed to a .383 wOBA. More of this, please.
J.J. Hardy was the week's worst hitter with a .138 wOBA. Ugh.
Best Pitcher/Worst Pitcher
Scott Feldman was easily the best pitcher for the O's this week. In 6 IP vs. the White Sox, he gave up two earned runs, struck out six, and walked none. Yes, please.
Uhhhhh, but not like this. It's tough to earn the moniker of "worst pitcher" over a soul-crushing blown save vs. the Yankees (*cough* Jim Johnson), but Feldman played Mr. Hyde to his own Dr. Jekyll when he faced the Rangers. His line: 5.1 IP, 9 H, 7 ER, 2 K, 1 BB. Yeah, he wasn't fooling anybody.
Crush Davis Update
Chris Davis hit two more home runs to climb to 33 on the year, equaling last sesaon's total with plenty more games to go. However, that's about all he did. His batting line for the week? A lopsided .120/.214/.400. He struck out in nearly 43% of his plate appearances. He also led all of baseball in All-Star Game votes.
Manny's Doubles Update
Manny Machado smacked a double to rise to 39 and made a couple amazing plays at third base. Otherwise, his .242 wOBA for the week was pretty bad. He made the All-Star Game as a reserve.
Adam Jones"The Power and the Patience" Update
Jones homered once, raising his total to 16, and also walked once, giving America a nice birthday present with his seventh unintentional free pass. Since his home run provided the go-ahead run against Mariano Rivera and the Yankees, I'm currently lobbying MLB to see if it can count as six runs. I'll let you know how that goes.
Jones's walk rate is now a minuscule 2.3%, the lowest among major leaguers with 300 PA or more. His OBP is at .314, below major-league average and 21st out of 25 qualified center fielders. He is your AL CF representative at the All Star Game.
The JJs
Jim Johnson blew another save (and lost another game) when he gave up two runs to the Yankees in the bottom of the 9th on Friday. He did get the Yankees 1-2-3 on Sunday, though.
Johnson's now lost seven games for the Orioles. I've decided to not mentally play with our W-L record to see what it'd be like if Johnson had been effective. That would depress me. Nope. Won't do it.
J.J. Hardy looked lost at the plate, going .115/.179/.154 for the week. He is your starting shortstop at the AL All-Star Game.
Jair Jurrjens was optioned to AAA Norfolk on July 1.
The Steves
You'll have to content yourself with some Steve-less action for a little while longer. Steve Clevenger, Steve Johnson, and Steve Pearce are all on the DL.
Misc. Note
Chris Tillman's run of good luck evened out a bit on Saturday when as the Yankees scored five runs against him, all on singles. I say good luck because Tillman is stranding close to 82% of his base runners, far above his career rate of about 72%. He's not pitching much better: compared to his career rates, he's striking out a few more batters and walking them at about the same rate. This leads me to believe he is getting a teensy bit lucky.
Watch for his ERA to rise a bit in the second half unless he reduces his walk rate and/or starts striking out more batters. Unfortunately, I think the former is far more likely to happen than the latter. (If the universe is listening: I will still take an ERA in the mid-4s, though. Thank you.)
Coming Up
The O's play three more against the powerful Rangers (+60 run differential), then host the will-they-or-won't-they Blue Jays (-6) before breaking for the All Star festivities.