The Baltimore Orioles roll into Fenway Park to begin a three-game series Tuesday night. We’re not halfway through the season yet, but this is a legitimate “statement” series featuring two teams who have gotten off to strong starts.
There’s no need for scoreboard watching this week. The winner of this series will go into the weekend in sole possession of first place in the American League East.
Besides staking a claim on first place, the Boston Red Sox have a little something to prove against Baltimore. The two teams have already played met seven times this season, with the Orioles winning four.
That continues a string of Orioles dominance in this divisional rivalry. Going back to Boston’s infamous collapse in September 2011, the Red Sox have gone 33-55 against Baltimore.
To paraphrase Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez, the Orioles have become Boston’s daddy.
It’s been five years since the Sox have won a season series with Baltimore. Even in the championship season of 2013, the Red Sox lost 11 of 19 games against Buck Showalter’s crew.
When Showalter took over as manager in Baltimore in 2010, he immediately set out to instill an “us against the world” philosophy at Camden Yards. He painted the Red Sox and Yankees as the big, bad bullies dominating the toughest division in baseball. He told the world that Boston and New York had budgets that no one else in the division could match, and challenged his team to step up as underdogs and not let the boys from up north steal their lunch money.
It worked. Since 2012 the Orioles have won more games than any other team in the division. Now it rings hollow for Showalter to continue to characterize the Red Sox bullies.
Instead, we’ve watched Chris Davis and Adam Jones and Manny Machado push around the Red Sox. We’ve watched former Sox pitching coach Dave Wallace piece together a bullpen that has quietly been as good as any in the division. We’ve seen Showalter push all the right buttons from his perch in the home dugout at Camden Yards.
The 2016 editions of these teams are evenly matched. Both have offenses that can bludgeon you to death and pitching staffs that can drive a manager crazy. Just two weeks ago they split a four-game series in Baltimore. The Sox scored 29 runs but couldn’t win the series. That’s because the Orioles also scored 29 runs – including 25 in the final two games. Boston pitchers gave up seven home runs in a 12-7 loss on June 2, matching the most homers ever allowed in a game by a Boston staff.
While the Sox split the series, they limped out of Baltimore wondering what happened. They demoted Joe Kelly to Triple-A, watched Clay Buchholz struggle out of the bullpen and moved to a four-man rotation for the ensuing two weeks.
That stretch is over. The Sox don’t have another scheduled day off until the end of the month. They will need to name a fifth starter this week (Buchholz is still in the pen while Roenis Elias has pitched well in Pawtucket). They need to figure out why Eduardo Rodriguez isn’t pitching like he did last year.
These are the type of problems facing first-place teams, and after back-to-back last-place finishes the Red Sox are happy to be in that position.
They’ll need to figure out a way to beat Baltimore if they want to stay there.
Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.
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