CHICAGO -- It wasn’t always pretty, and some of the issues that plagued Baltimore before its trip to Chicago made its way to the South Side -- but the ability to overcome those miscues says something in itself.
The Orioles did enough to outlast the White Sox in a 5-3 victory on Wednesday afternoon at Rate Field, securing the sweep and a 3-3 road trip to get back to .500 after a rough series in Pittsburgh.
The O’s have yet to hit their stride offensively, defensive errors have cost the club runs and the No. 5 starter role is in flux, but Baltimore found a way to right the ship before Thursday’s off-day and return home.
Here’s what can get better and what the O’s need to fix after 12 games:
High-powered offense waiting to break out
Gunnar Henderson, Taylor Ward, Adley Rutschman, Pete Alonso and Tyler O'Neill have combined for just six homers so far -- which wouldn’t be any cause for alarm if Henderson didn’t have four of them. It’s hard to imagine Ward, Rutschman, Alonso and O’Neill having extended power outages at the same time, but the O’s have only hit more homers (eight) than the Tigers (seven) in the American League. Still, they entered the day tied for 19th in runs scored (45).
The first sign to mix things up happened in Wednesday’s finale, when manager Craig Albernaz switched up the lineup to put Henderson, whose homers in the first two games were the difference, at leadoff and Alonso at cleanup for the first time this season.
Ward, who has nine doubles in his past eight games and had been holding down the leadoff spot, continued to rake and drove in Henderson twice with a pair of doubles as part of a four-hit effort in the finale. Once Alonso or O’Neill get going, the O’s envision their offense as being one of the most dangerous in the league.
Defense not locking it down
It wasn’t the first series the Orioles had been sloppy on defense, and it was no different against the White Sox with four errors in three games.
The most costly came on Wednesday, when starter Kyle Bradish was frustrated after a two-out walk to Colson Montgomery in the fifth to load the bases. Bradish didn’t keep his eye on catcher Adley Rutschman’s throw back to the mound, and turned his head and stabbed his glove at the ball, wanting to catch it angrily.
Instead, the ball rolled away from him and a lack of urgency to pick it up allowed Chase Meidroth to score from second base. Bradish hurried his throw to the plate and sailed the throw to the backstop, allowing both runners to advance.
However, he escaped the jam with a strikeout of Andrew Benintendi to limit the damage.