Orioles remain undefeated against teams named Sox with 11-3 bashing of Boston

The Orioles refuse to lose to teams named the Sox this season. Fresh off their four-game mop of the White Sox, the O’s returned to Camden Yards on Memorial Day and grilled the Red Sox like so many holiday weekend meats, rocking and rolling to an easy and fun 11-3 victory. There’s just something about these Boston pitchers that gets the O’s going, which is why they’re 4-0 against the Red Sox so far this season.

The story of the game is the Orioles offense. This was not actually an outcome that was guaranteed or even necessarily likely. Boston has one of the best pitching staffs in all of baseball – second-best in ERA behind only the Yankees – and the O’s were matching up against a starter, Cooper Criswell, who brought a 2.86 ERA into the game. This guy has been good so far, a thing that has mattered for some pitchers and has not mattered for others.

Today was more of a Crispoor kind of day. By game’s end, the Orioles inflated that ERA by more than a full run – and that was with an unearned run worked in there for a play where Colton Cowser may have deserved a hit instead. It is not the first time the Orioles have lit somebody up like that this season. It gets more challenging as the season goes along, because the more innings a guy has thrown, the harder it is to impact his ERA, but it is always welcome.

The Orioles scoring started off small. They broke the scoreless tie in the second inning thanks to base hits by Ryan Mountcastle and Jordan Westburg; the first run was actually scored by Westburg’s buddy Colton Cowser, who was on base after hitting into a fielder’s choice.

The very next inning, one more Orioles run scored, one that was a result of Jorge Mateo’s speed. The infielder doubled in one of those “it’s a homer everywhere except Camden Yards” specials, high off the left field wall. From there, it was like Mateo was determined to turn his ball into a “homer” – he advanced on a groundout and then scored on a shallow sacrifice fly, willing himself across the plate even while he ran on a strong-armed outfielder in Ceddanne Rafaela.

This kind of little thing might have made the difference in another game. On Monday afternoon, the Orioles offense just decided to blow the thing open instead. Their fourth inning saw them load the bases with no one out before Kyle Stowers drove in two of the three runners with an opposite field double.

Sox left fielder Jarren Duran was shallow and Stowers hit it over his head, with Duran having a McKenna-esque “go in first” reaction to this ball. O’s beat writer Jacob Calvin Meyer noted that Stowers got to hit the sprinkler for the first time ever at Camden Yards. Cedric Mullins followed with one of his specialty effortless triples to score two more. This was actually the first triple of the year for Mullins, hit right into the corner of the expanded left field fence. A Mateo sacrifice fly later and the Orioles had themselves a 7-0 lead.

That’s all that they would need on this afternoon. Cole Irvin, pressed back into the rotation due to the absence of John Means, put up zeroes on the board for five innings against the Red Sox hitters. It wasn’t the smoothest outing for Irvin, who had to scatter four hits and three walks to keep it scoreless and who had a lot of bad misses, but at the same time, scoreless is scoreless. There were only four hard-hit balls off of Irvin while he was in the game. That will work. So will Irvin’s new ERA for the season: 2.84.

With Criswell knocked from the game after just four innings, Boston turned to pitcher Brad Keller. What’s notable about Keller is that he was just released by the White Sox, who as we know, stink. The Red Sox threw Keller to the wolves, or at least to the Orioles offense, and left him out there to do what he could for four innings. The fact that Keller pitched the rest of the game means he did his job – relievers are saved for the next two games in the series.

Those four innings were not, overall, very good. Actually, it was only one inning where the Orioles scored against Keller. It’s just that they got four runs across the plate in that one inning. The O’s turned a walk and four hits into four more runs, with Adley Rutschman, Mountcastle, and Stowers all driving in runs. Stowers’s seventh inning hit was his third of the day. He drove in four runs. You think maybe the Orioles should play that guy some more?

The only real blemish there was on the day for the Orioles came when they turned to their own freshly-arrived pitcher, Thyago Vieira. This hard-throwing righty reliever was acquired a couple of days ago and activated for today’s game, with the O’s optioning Nick Vespi. A wild man for the entirety of his MLB career to date, you might have hoped that arriving in an 11-0 game would give him some ability to not worry about making great pitches and just throw strikes.

For anyone who hoped that, this hope was in vain. Vieira walked the first guy he faced, threw a wild pitch on the way to walking the next guy, and then for good measure, walked a third guy to load the bases with nobody out. The fourth guy cleared the bases with a triple, finally putting the Red Sox on the board. Vieira then walked one more dude just to really put an exclamation point on the whole thing.

On a human level, you have to feel bad for Vieira. He surely did not want to have this be the first impression he made on his new organization. Had he pitched better – or even had he only allowed like, one run while pitching an inning – it would be fun to talk about the first Brazilian to play for the Orioles.

On a baseball level, looking at his career body of work, why did Mike Elias think this would be any different? How soon will he feel compelled to try a different guy? These are not questions to dwell on too much on a day where the Orioles kicked the Red Sox in their keisters. It must have been a good day to be at the stadium for all 40,951 people in the announced crowd – or at least all of them who aren’t Red Sox fans.

There’s still room on the bandwagon, folks. The owner might even throw you a free hat.

Cionel Pérez cleaned up Vieira’s mess in the eighth before Dillon Tate pitched a scoreless ninth to end the game. Earlier on, Jacob Webb followed Irvin with two scoreless innings of his own.

Weirdly, the Yankees were not scheduled to play on this Memorial Day, so the Orioles, with the win, pull themselves to 1.5 games back in the AL East. The teams are tied in the loss column. The Orioles are on pace for a 106-win season. You can sign me up for that right now.

The series resumes tomorrow night for a scheduled 6:35 start. The Orioles will try to keep themselves undefeated against the Sox in 2024, and extend their season-high winning streak to six games, behind Grayson Rodriguez. Brayan Bello is set to pitch for Boston.