Another disappointing game. Ponson had a mediocre outing, and ended up really hurting himself in the 3rd inning when he had 2 outs, a runner on first, and Jim Thome with an 0-2 count. He threw 4 straight balls and walked Thome. Then, with a 1-0 count to Pat Burrell, he threw a fast ball that Burrell deposited deep over the left field wall in the middle deck seats. Overall, a pitcher giving up 4 runs really isn’t that bad. What really irks me are the walks. Not the walks that are the result of a long at bat, the freebies that occur because for whatever reason, the pitcher just can’t or won’t throw a damn strike. In the Orioles case, those walks always seem to come back and bite them by scoring.
One final complaint: 
the blown call of the game. In the bottom of the 4th inning, Melvin Mora was leading off and dropped down a bunt in an attempt to surprise the defense and get on base. He hustled down the line, and appeared to hit the bag well ahead of the throw from the pitcher, who fielded the ball. Unfortunately, the first base umpire didn’t see it that way and called him out. Rick Dempsey and Lee Mazilli came out to share their thoughts and concerns with the ump, but to no avail. Now back to your regularly scheduled, less critical reading… 
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| PHI | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 11 | 0 |
| BAL | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 1 |
The O’s lost the series, 1-2, and now have a 27-16 record.
This entry was posted on Sunday, May 22nd, 2005 and is filed under Baseball, O's. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.