Was anyone else surprised to learn that Chris Davis' pinch-hit walk-off home run last night was the first by an Oriole since Larry Sheets on Aug. 24, 1988 against the Mariners? Your browser does not support iframes. Sheets' shot came against reliever Mike Schooler in Game 1 of a doubleheader at Memorial Stadium. The Mariners' third base coach was current Orioles hitting coach Jim Presley. Sheets was pinch-hitting for third baseman Rene Gonzalez. Pinch-runner Brady Anderson, who replaced...

Some say Manny Machado is in the midst of a slump. That he missed spring training, came into the season cold and proceeded to be off his mark. Before last night's came, that slump has been going on for 199 plate appearances this season with a slash line of .224/.274/.322. If you prefer using a more holistic metric that takes run expectancy for each of his at bats and compares it to the league average, his wRC+ is 66. That is well below league average (100 wRC+), average for a third baseman (97...

To shake or not to shake was a uniting theme between the Nationals and the Atlanta Braves in their recent four-game series that pitted the National League East foes against one another in a fight for first place in the division. For the Nationals, the question was whether to shake off fastballs in favor of other pitches for Friday starter Stephen Strasburg - in particular, against Braves slugger Jason Heyward. For the Braves, it was a continued shakging off of catcher Evan Gattis' signs by...

Chris Davis has two career pinch-hit home runs, the first coming on May 14, 2009. Tonight's shot figures to stay with him a lot longer. Davis ran the count full against White Sox reliever Ronal Belisario with two on and one out in the bottom of the ninth inning and launched a slider into the right field seats for a walk-off home run that gave the Orioles a 6-4 win over the White Sox at Camden Yards. Davis is 5-for-13 with two homers and five RBIs as a pinch-hitter. Manager Buck Showalter...

After struggles that saw him go 4-for-36 over his previous nine games and with a batting average of just .187 in June, Chris Davis stepped to the plate in the ninth inning tonight and hit a walk-off, three-run homer for the Orioles. Davis didn't start tonight's game, but he certainly ended it with a shot to right-center on a 3-2 pitch from Ronald Belisario. It turned what looked like it would be a frustrating one-run loss into an uplifting 6-4 win to start an 11-game homestand. It was the...

After a night of frustration on offense the Orioles won on a walk-off home run by their struggling first baseman. Chris Davis, who didn't start tonight and was 4-for-36 over his last nine games, hit a pinch-hit, three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to turn a potential one-run loss into a 6-4 win over the Chicago White Sox. The ninth inning began with White Sox closer Ronald Belisario on to protect a 4-3 lead. He faced Steve Pearce to start the ninth and Pearce singled to left. Adam...

Through five innings tonight, the Orioles are 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and have stranded nine. They've squandered numerous chances against White Sox left-hander Chris Sale, who's allowed a season-high 10 hits in five innings but only two runs. He's no longer behind in this game. White Sox rookie Jose Abreu homered off left-hander Wei-Yin Chen leading off the top of the sixth to tie the game 2-2, and doubles by Dayan Viciedo and Conor Gillaspie gave Chicago the...

The Nationals may be in first place in the National League East, but they are not well-represented in the 2014 All-Star Game voting. Actually, they're barely represented at all. In the most recent All-Star balloting figures, Bryce Harper is the only Nationals player listsed among the top vote-getters. He sits in 15th place among NL outfielders, and has amassed 680,930 votes. Harper has missed nearly two months recovering from surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left thumb. Before his...

Matt Williams won't be around to watch the remainder of the Nationals' first game of a seven-game road trip. Between the top and bottom halves of the second inning, Williams was ejected after a prolonged and animated discussion with home plate umpire Mark Wegner over his interpretation of the strike zone in an inning during which the Nationals loaded the bases with none out - and still failed to score. The key point that Williams seemed to repeatedly make was that Wegner called a 3-2 pitch to...

WOODBRIDGE, Va. - Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper played three innings in left field for the high Single-A Potomac Nationals in his first minor league rehab game as he recovers from a left thumb ligament injury. Wearing jersey No. 32, Harper went 1-for-1 with a single, a walk and a run scored. He came home on a three-run shot by catcher Wilson Ramos in a four-run third inning that gave the P-Nats a 4-1 lead over the Salem Red Sox. Ramos finished 3-for-4 with a single, double and three-run...