Home Runs

Through the first two games of this four-game series with Boston, the Orioles pitching staff kept a potent Red Sox lineup in check. Boston tallied 12 hits in 74 at-bats in the two Orioles wins for a paltry .181 average and four runs. Despite the success, Orioles manager Buck Showalter kept speaking to the potent nature of the Red Sox's lineup, and in the Orioles' 5-4 loss Saturday afternoon , those bats finally came alive. When the Red Sox put three runs across in the fourth inning, it broke a streak of 18 consecutive scoreless innings posted by Orioles pitchers.

Through the first two games of this four-game series with Boston, the Orioles pitching staff kept a potent Red Sox lineup in check. Boston tallied 12 hits in 74 at-bats in the two Orioles wins for a paltry .181 average and four runs. Despite the success, Orioles manager Buck Showalter kept speaking to the potent nature of the Red Sox's lineup, and in the Orioles' 5-4 loss Saturday afternoon , those bats finally came alive. When the Red Sox put three runs across in the fourth inning, it broke a streak of 18 consecutive scoreless innings posted by Orioles pitchers.

Fireworks were expected at Camden Yards this weekend with two of baseball's highest-scoring teams, the Orioles and Detroit Tigers, duking it out in a measuring-stick series between two top American League teams. The O's took two of three, and fans of the long ball were also winners as the teams combined for 14 homers. The Orioles hit six of them and now lead the majors with 81 this season, six more than the Atlanta Braves. But this post isn't about how Chris Davis and Co. are clobbering pitches out of the ballpark.

Five active Orioles have a higher batting average than Nick Markakis this season. The veteran right fielder is fifth on the team in doubles. He is fifth in home runs. Fifth in runs scored. And fifth in runs batted in. Where Markakis currently ranks in those categories has everything to do with the high-powered Orioles offense -- one that is second in baseball in runs and first in homers -- and nothing to do with how he is hitting. Before leaving the team Tuesday following the death of his grandmother, Markakis was batting .300 with 12 doubles, seven home runs and 33 RBIs.

"Too much of a good thing is wonderful." -- Mae West WASHINGTON -- Not necessarily, as Major League Baseball is learning from its current glut of home runs. Baseball lightning is becoming as common, and about as exciting, as lightning bugs. And this time the glut cannot be explained by the Happy Haitians Theory. In 1987, when home runs were unusually frequent, Tony Kubek, a former player turned broadcaster, probably was kidding (with baseball people, you never know) when he said: The baseballs are made in Haiti, and Haitians, exuberant about the downfall of the Duvalier regime, are winding the yarn inside the balls extra tight, and pulling the laces on the balls' covers so tight the laces are almost flush with the surface, making it difficult for pitchers to get a good grip, and causing balls to have less wind resistance and pitches less movement.

If you want to know why baseball put up with sluggers like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa getting big as sequoias while rewriting the record books, just turn on the TV this season. When they show game highlights on ESPN's Sportcenter or the 11 o'clock news, what do you see? It's not some skinny second baseman laying down a sacrifice bunt. It's not the 180-pound lead-off hitter roping a nice, clean single to left field. No, it's big guys with rippling muscles smacking home runs deep into the night and strutting around the bases as the crowd goes wild.

WASHINGTON -- Before yesterday's final Orioles exhibition game at RFK Stadium, Rick Sutcliffe was ragging on Ben McDonald about the latter's tidy ERA this spring."

The remarkable start of Seattle center fielder Ken Griffey has him on a pace well ahead of Roger Maris' record 61 home run season. Why stop there? Why not figure what pace Griffey would have to match to break Hank Aaron's career home run record of 755?Just for fun, consider that if Griffey maintained his 76 home run pace throughout the season, he would have 208 home runs before turning 25. Figuring he will play 15 more seasons and retire at the age of 39, Griffey would have to average 37 home runs to break Aaron's record.

The summer seemed so iconic. Huge men hit balls to places kids had heard about only in tall tales spun by Grandpa. Every day it seemed, Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa did something those kids would be able to tell their own grandchildren about. And it was all wrapped in that blessed nugget of Nike attitude: "Chicks dig the long ball." Barry Bonds only upped the ante three years later, in 2001, when he hit 73 homers and began mounting the first serious challenge to Hank Aaron's 755. The popularity of the game seemed indistinguishable from the popularity of the home run. But four years later, memories of those heady days are shrouded in ambivalence.

Who put the oomph into baseball this season? Balls fly out of big-league parks at a near-record pace, and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa swing as if they are hitting Flubber.Both McGwire, the Bunyanesque first baseman for St. Louis, and Sosa, the Chicago Cubs outfielder, smashed the single-season record of 61 home runs set by Roger Maris in 1961. With two days to go, both have 66.Seattle's Ken Griffey has 55 home runs, and eight other players have clubbed 40 or more.Fans and pundits offer the standard skinny for the power surge, from second-rate pitching to smaller stadiums.

Fireworks were expected at Camden Yards this weekend with two of baseball's highest-scoring teams, the Orioles and Detroit Tigers, duking it out in a measuring-stick series between two top American League teams. The O's took two of three, and fans of the long ball were also winners as the teams combined for 14 homers. The Orioles hit six of them and now lead the majors with 81 this season, six more than the Atlanta Braves. But this post isn't about how Chris Davis and Co. are clobbering pitches out of the ballpark.

Shortstop J.J. Hardy broke out of an 0-for-11 streak in a big way Saturday, going 2-for-3 with two solo home runs against Detroit ace Justin Verlander in the Orioles' 10-3 loss to the Tigers. Hardy conitinues to pull himself out of an early season funk. He has raised his batting average 56 points since May 2, when he was .188. In 28 games in May, Hardy hit .273 with seven home runs and 17 RBIs and has helped solidify the bottom half of the Orioles' batting order. “We're still hacking, just trying to put up as many runs,” Hardy said.

Here's what umpire crew chief Gerry Davis told me about the delay on today's replay review on Rays right fielder Matt Joyce's eventual home run ball in the Orioles' 3-1 loss to the Rays: "[Orioles manager] Buck [Showalter] wanted to know whether the ball was, in fact, fair. We got together as a crew to discuss whether the ball was fair or foul, whether any of us had anything differently than [first-base ump Dan Iassogna] had. We did not. So the ruling on the field was that it was a fair ball in play.

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Each Wednesday, blogger Matt Vensel will highlight five statistics that really mean something for the Orioles. 66 -- saves, most in the major leagues, for Orioles closer Jim Johnson since Sept. 7, 2011. With Tuesday's win over the Toronto Blue Jays, the Orioles have now won 100 straight regular-season games when leading at the completion of the seventh inning, a run that started on August 8, 2011. That is the second-longest such streak since 1961. A lot of things have played a role in that streak -- manager Buck Showalter pointed to the mentality of his players -- but no factor might be bigger than closer Jim Johnson.

Glenelg senior shortstop Leah Allen has to go way back to recall her first memory with a bat in her hand. When she was 2 years old, Allen would go to the backyard with her father, Harold, and play with a Wiffle ball and bat. She signed up for an organized softball league as soon as she was old enough. A four-year starter, two-year captain and returning All-Metro first-team selection, Allen is the do-it-all catalyst who has led the No. 2 Gladiators to an 9-0 record so far this season.

Jason Maxey is a perfect fit for the new Tigers from Towson. The slugging first baseman has arrived from Maryland just in time to lead a home run assault that has carried Maxey and the Tigers to the top of the NCAA Division I home run charts. Maxey is tied for the lead in the nation with Oklahoma State's Adam Carr with 17, and the Towson team is No. 1 with 78 homers in 39 games. Maxey is threatening to become the first Tiger to lead the country in home runs. Maxey's home run show comes from the No. 5 or No. 6 spot in the batting order, with both Casper Wells and Mark Chiccini usually hitting ahead of him. Wells is right behind Maxey with 15 homers.

A growing panic has spread across New England this month, as Red Sox Nation waits to see if the rival New York Yankees will trade for five-time Cy Young winner Randy Johnson. Silly Boston fans. For all the energy they've spent thinking about that lanky left-hander, their team had enough trouble last night dealing with a stocky Orioles right-hander named Dave Borkowski. In another game that showed why baseball can be so unpredictable, Borkowski outpitched Curt Schilling, and Javy Lopez turned in his first multi-homer game of the season, as the Orioles defeated the Red Sox, 4-1, before 45,780 at Camden Yards.

Baltimore is a rather Catholic town; if you ever lived here you know that. I was born and raised an Irish Catholic in Baltimore; if you frequent this blog you may have known that. Baseball is the ultimate sport for bizarre connections to history. No sport does random statistics better than baseball. This morning's blog merges all of those concepts together rather seamlessly (or clumsily, that's your call). I must admit its ridiculousness made me laugh and shake my head a little bit. Baseball historian/statistician Bill Arnold passed this tidbit my way. And I had to share it with you. It combines Catholicism and baseball.

Shortstop Yunel Escobar and second baseman Ryan Roberts hit back-to-back home runs off Orioles left-hander Brian Matusz in the fourth inning on Saturday as the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Orioles, 4-1, at Charlotte Sports Park. Those were the only hits Matusz surrendered over two innings after coming on in relief of starting pitcher Wei-Yin Chen, who needed just 23 pitches to complete two scoreless innings in his 2013 Grapefruit League debut. "[For my] spring debut this year, I feel pretty satisfied for today," Chen said through interpreter Tim Lin. The Orioles scored their only run of the game in the sixth inning when third baseman Manny Machado tripled off Rays pitcher Josh Lueke and outfielder Jason Pridie drove him home with a sharp single up the middle.