Important stuff from a private 8-2 clubbing from the Orioles

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If the Orioles had just cleared out the media for security purposes as well, restricted the outside video feed, and sent a couple guards to handle those people by the gate, the Sox would have been all set.

Instead they were on display, with their bats as dead as the crowd, and were bludgeoned as the national media watched. The story was never going to be the game itself, and a six-run first inning off Jeff Samardzija allowed everyone to stay on topic about the unique surroundings. Maybe it was better for us--the perpetually concerned Sox fans--to focus on how the crack of Chris Davis' three-run bomb around the right field foul pole sounded with no one around, rather than what the hell Jeff Samardzija threw to him. Celebratory tweets about the pace of play when the game wrapped after barely more than two hours were better than pondering why the Sox lineup was buzzsawed by Ubaldo Jimenez.

At least they got out of Baltimore.

Box Score

  • This would put the ledger of Really Impressive Samardzija Starts vs. Samardzija Starts So Bad You Have to Believe It's an Aberration to 1.5 vs. 2.5 on the season. Jose Abreu botching a double play that would have diffused the first inning disaster before it got started didn't help Samardzija, but it didn't make him hang sliders to Davis, Everth Cabrera and Manny Machado, either. The 'lively stuff with no command' guy has spent his first month with the Sox pitching like his career numbers rather than someone who crystallized everything in 2014. Gary Thorne called him "Sa-maaahhhhh-jaa" all day and he didn't deserve better.
  • Sometime after a Caleb Joseph flare bounced off the tip of Micah Johnson's glove to make it 6-0 in the first, I looked up and found that Marcus Semien had a 113 wRC+ going into Wednesday's action, and I wish I had not.
  • The Sox actually got six PAs with runners in scoring position, which is a relevant and positive footnote to them going 0-6 in those situations. Orioles pitching needed just 115 pitches to cover the whole nine innings, and neither of the Sox two runs were earned, as their fifth inning rally was perpetuated by a Machado throwing error.
  • Two singles by Avisail Garcia put his batting line at .292/.333/.385, which is certainly playable while still a bizarre deployment of his natural resources. If we give him credit for that, the list of Sox players having encouraging months of April would be Avisail, Jose Abreu, and uh, Gordon Beckham? Ideal!
  • Carlos Rodon made his second MLB appearance in the eighth inning in extreme garbage time. He showed his gonzo slider, and delivered one perfect, meaningless inning.
  • It was really quiet, as you might have expected. It was day game and I didn't get to listen to much audio, but Hawk isn't trending on Twitter, so things must have gone OK.

Next game is Thursday at 7:10pm CT on CSN+ vs. Der Twain.