After taking a brief hiatus this weekend from the Orioles-Mariners series (and Game 1 of the Angels set), I'm back. And what do I come back to? How about a 27-year old who has spent 9 seasons in the minors and is not even a TOP 30 Orioles prospect throwing an 8-inning one-hit shutout against the best team in baseball? Wow.
I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was disappointed that Hayden Penn or Brad Bergeson didn't get to come up and make this start. Penn was hit by the shard of a broken bat in the first inning of his last start, requring stictches, so they didn't want to bring him up. And Bergeson, who has dominated AA (14-3, ERA under 2.50), was just that, still in AA. Andy MacPhail has said he didn't want to rush young players, so don't count on too many guys jumping from AA right to Baltimore (unless it's Matt Wieters, but that's a whole different issue.)
So the man who got the call was Chris Waters. Waters had a decent start to the year in Bowie before getting the call to AAA Norfolk, where he was terrible for a while. However, he had a great July, and the Orioles decided to give him a shot. Did he ever respond.
How about 8 innings, 1 hit, NO RUNS for his first major league start! Incredible! The only hit he allowed was a lead-off single to Vlad Guerrero in the second inning, which was quickly erased on a Torii Hunter double-play ball. And, as Joe Angel so astutely pointed out on the radio call, the ball Vlad hit landed right in front of Markakis, who didn't want to make a dive at it as Vlad was the lead-off hitter in the inning. If there is two outs and no one on, I would bet money Markakis dives for it and probably catches it.
Anyways, the only real trouble Waters got into was in the third. With one out, he hit Gary Matthews Jr and then walked Jeff Mathis on 4 pitches that weren't close at all. It looked like it was falling apart quickly. However, he got Figgins to bounce out to second, which moved up the runners. This was really the biggest threat he faced all night. Men on second and third with two outs, and Erick Aybar at the plate. Waters showed no signs of being rattled, and got Aybar to ground out to short to end the threat.
Now, as great as Waters was lat night (I thought his delivery and the movement on his pitches looked alot like Tom Glavine), we need to remember who this guy is. His ERA was around 5 at AAA. Chances are he will never have a start as good as this one. But he certainly earned himself another chance, thats for sure.
Also, Hayden Penn, who didn't get the call, pitched for Norfolk last night. He threw 5 shutout innings. I would not be surprised if in the near future you see Dennis Sarfate moved back to the bullpen and Penn brought up to pitch in the rotation. That would leave an odd-man out in the bullpen, probably Francisco Cabrera.
The rubber game of three with the Halos is this afternoon, with Ervin Santana going against Garret Olson. The O's are 5-3 on the road trip so far, having gotten 2 of 3 in New York and 2 of 3 in Seattle. A win today would give them a 6-3 trip, and make the plane ride back to Baltimore, and the off day tomorrow, very enjoyable.
Keywords: Baltimore Orioles
