Orioles: Good Start, Obvious Questions

Winning teams win series one by one. To that goal the Orioles won their first series against arch-rival New York Yankees whose lavish spending is only exceeded by the Federal Government but at least one could argue the Yankees pay for talent. The Orioles won openning day, 10-5. Took game 2, 7-5 and lost the finale 2-11. The Orioles showed their positives on offense and fielding though they only scored two runs and a costly error turned the third game. Jeremy Guthrie and Koji Uehara pitched well in their first starts while career minor leaguer Alfredo Simon, serving as the third starter, gave up four runs in five innings of work. The stat behind the wins is that in three games, the Yankees outscored the Orioles, 21 to 19. 21 runs over three games is not going to yield a team many wins by season's end in September. For teams to win consistently, they must give up four runs or fewer. The Orioles did not come close to that mark. The bullpen has contributed nothing to their success so far with the Yankees in a postion to overcome a huge deficit and win it in the 9th with the winning run on base. It was game that never should have resulted in a save situation.

On the plus side, wins are wins, and when the Orioles can beat the Yankees two out of three, that's always a good thing. They'll have to play commanding baseball to do the same against the Tampa Bay Rays who absolutely had the Orioles' number last year and are one team the Orioles must do better against to consider the 2009 season an improvement over 2008. Can the Orioles hold the Rays to four runs or less over the weekend? If they do, they could very well have a 4-2 or 5-1 record Monday morning. If they don't, fans will start digging in feeling, "Here we go again."