Wednesday night the Baltimore Orioles finished off a clean sweep, beating the Chicago White Sox 4-3. A lot of credit can be attributed to Nelson Cruz – the man who blasted his 33rd home run of the season.
Cruz, who matched his career high for homers, currently leads the league in that category. He is one homer ahead of Jose Abreu and Giancarlo Stanton.
Nelson Cruz and the Orioles have had a lot to celebrate lately – most notably, their ability to hit the long ball.
After the game, however, Cruz said that he could care less about the home run numbers – he’s just happy that the Orioles are cruising (pun intended).
And it wasn’t just Cruz that was on top of his game. The Orioles also got homers out of Adam Jones and Steve Pearce. To date, the Orioles have launched 161 baseballs over the outfield fence.
But the Orioles also got some quality pitching from starter Wei-Yin Chen; he went 7 and 1/3 innings, allowing three runs on six hits. Zach Britton came in for the save, his 27th save of the season. Chen started off sloppy, allowing a two-run home run in the first inning to Avisail Garcia. He ran into trouble again in the 8th inning, allowing two singles – one to Alexei Ramirez and one to Alejandro De Aza. That’s when Darren O’Day entered the game and struck out Jose Abreu and Garcia to end the inning.
The White Sox have been slipping lately and are now nine games under .500.
The Orioles also gave some updates on Manny Machado, saying that his sprained right ankle has been recovering slowly. It has not responded favorably to treatments and exercises. As for the White Sox, outfielder Adam Eaton could be coming off the disabled list next week. He’ll be starting his rehab assignment in AAA very soon. Eaton has been struggling to recover from a strained right oblique and can supply some offense to a White Sox team that needs it desperately.
The Orioles have the day off today before traveling to visit the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Friday. Kevin Gausman will be matching up with Jake Arrieta. Arrieta has been having a good year, posting an ERA of 2.6 for the season.
The White Sox also have the day off today before traveling to New York to go up against the Yankees. John Danks will be facing off with Shane Greene. Danks has struggled since the start of July, posting a 6.2 ERA over the last seven weeks. Good news for the White Sox, though: Carlos Rodon, the third overall pick in this year’s draft, could be making an appearance in the majors before the season ends.
