The Orioles are a lot of people’s sentimental favorite because they hadn’t won a postseason game in 18 years until last night. The Yanks took a 1-0 lead in the first after Ichiro Suzuki did a great job sliding around Baltimore catcher Matt Wieters. The Orioles came back and scored two runs in the third and another in the sixth to take a 3-1 lead. New York got one run in the seventh, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Orioles from winning 3-2 and tying the series.
Baltimore had not won a postseason game since October of 1994 until they defeated the Yankees last night. Over that span, the Orioles have only made the playoffs a couple of times and have been perpetually at the bottom of the American League East division dominated by the Yankees and Boston Red Sox. However, last night when the Orioles held a 3-1 lead going into the seventh the city of Baltimore surely had more hope they would win a postseason game than they’ve had in quite some time. The reason being, that Baltimore had a 74-0 record when leading after six innings during the regular season.
The Nationals and Cardinals also played Game 2 of their divisional series yesterday. The Cards routed the Nats by a 12-4 score. St. Louis was led offensively by right fielder Carlos Beltran, who hit two home runs in the game. The young Cardinals pitching sensation Lance Lynn got the win for St. Louis going three innings and giving up two runs on three hits with five strikeouts.
The defending champion Cardinals will look to build on this game and gain some momentum going forward in this series. Much like last year, St. Louis has barely slipped into the playoffs, but they’ve gotten hot just in time to maybe make another deep run. Although, it will be tougher to hold the momentum with the rest of the series being played out in the nation’s capital.
