A four-homer game is pretty impressive. Josh Hamilton did that last night at Camden Yards. A six-homer game is not bad, either. That happened in the college ranks 13 years ago today and there are some similarities between the two players that hammered all those longballs. Josh Hamilton hit four homers on May 8, 2012 in Baltimore. Marshall McDougall hit six homers on May 9, 1999 in College Park, Md. In the same state where Hamilton hit four last night, McDougall of the Florida State...

Thanks to Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox and Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers, the 2012 season has become the first in major league history to feature both a perfect game and a four-homer game. To think, in his first five plate appearances Monday night, Hamilton went 0-for-3 with two walks. But since the ninth inning of that game, he is 6-for-6 with a double, five homers and 10 RBIs. That is beyond ridiculous. The Orioles fans at Camden Yards were very classy to give Hamilton a...

Josh Hamilton put on a remarkable show tonight at Camden Yards. The Orioles have now lost the first two games of their series against division-leading Texas. Hamilton became the 14th major leaguer with four homers since 1918 and led Texas to a 10-3 romp over the Orioles.Hamilton went 5-for-5 with a double, four homers and eight RBIs as the Rangers won the first two games of this series by a combined scored of 24-6. The Orioles had won their previous five games at New York and Boston by a combined 35-13 score.Hamilton actually hit five homers in a six at-bat stretch after hitting a two-run homer in the ninth last night. Tonight, he hit a two-run homer in the first and third innings, added a double in the fifth then hit two more two-run homers in the seventh and eighth innings.Hamilton's 18 total bases are an American League record.It's the first four-homer game since Carlos Delgado in 2003. Hamilton's 18 total bases and five extra-base hits are Rangers club records.The Orioles lost for the second time in a row after the five-game win streak and for the fourth time over the last 15 games. They fall to 19-11 on the season.Losing pitcher Jake Arrieta gave up six runs and nine hits over 6 1/3 to fall to 2-3 with an ERA of 4.23.Orioles starters have now given up 18 earned runs in 15 2/3 over their past three games after pitching to an ERA of 1.99 over a 12-game stretch.The Orioles got back-to-back solo homers in the last of the eighth from J.J. Hardy and Nick Markakis, who earlier had a RBI single.In Game Three of this series tomorrow night, it's Wei-Yin Chen (2-0, 2.76) against Colby Lewis (3-1, 2.97).

Lefty pitcher Zach Phillips was back in the Orioles clubhouse today. After being among the last roster cuts at the very end of spring training, Phillips has been activated tonight and recalled from Triple-A Norfolk in time for the game versus Texas with Jason Berken returning to Triple-A Norfolk. Phillips was acquired by the Orioles last July for minor leaguer Nick Green and pitched to an ERA of 1.13 in ten games last year. The 25-year-old had no record with an ERA of 4.15 and three saves...

Orioles outfielder Nolan Reimold has been on the disabled list since May 4 (retroactive to May 1) with a herniated disk in his cervical spine. He is eligible to come off the DL on May 16 and will likely play in some minor league games before his return to the active roster. "Right now, I feel alright," Reimold said this afternoon. "As far as all this goes, the top of my forearm is still numb and my thumb is numb. Other than that, just some aches in the shoulder area. I took a dosepak and...

After a stretch where he has just one hit over his last four games and 17 at-bats, Nick Markakis is now batting .230 on the year with three homers, 11 RBIs and an OPS of .687 in 29 games. After driving in 60 runs in 2010 and 73 last year, Markakis has just three RBIs over his last 13 games and is not giving the Orioles your standard three-spot batting order production right now. But manager Buck Showalter said today he is not considering moving Markakis to another spot in the lineup at this...

Here is a daunting stat: Texas has won six games in a row against the Orioles and has outscored the Birds 60-15 in those games. Yes, that is an average of 10 runs per game. In three of those games, Texas scored 13 runs on the Orioles and last night they did that one better. Last year, in going 5-1 against Baltimore, the Rangers had a team batting average of .343 and OPS of .940 with 18 doubles and eight homers. Yeah, that is pretty good. The 2012 Rangers lead the American League in runs,...

Minutes after his team had lost last night to the Texas Rangers by 11 runs, Buck Showalter could have said his club was tired and his pitching staff taxed after playing 39 innings over three days in Boston. There was an excuse to be had for the loss there if Showalter chose to use it. He did not. "I know that's a real easy area to go down, but I don't think anybody in our locker room would," Showalter said. "(Matt) Harrison pitched well. Their whole pitching staff is very deep. But...

The Orioles came home after a 5-1 road trip with the best record in the major leagues at 19-9, but tonight a former Oriole had a big night against them as Texas beat the Orioles 14-3 at Camden Yards. The Orioles' five-game win streak ended as they lost for just the second time in nine games and third time in 14 games. Brandon Snyder, the Orioles' first-round pick in 2005 out of a Virginia high school, homered and drove in six runs to lead Texas, which improved to 19-10. Snyder had a two-run...

Single-A Delmarva's Dylan Bundy gave up his first run in his sixth start as a pro tonight, but it was unearned on the road at Charleston. After pitching around a two-out double to left in the first and striking out the side in the second, Bundy gave up that run in the last of the third. With two outs and no one on, he struck out Mason Williams but Williams reached first on a wild pitch. He then scored on a somewhat bizarre sequence where catcher Gabriel Lino threw a ball back wildly toward...

Pitcher Stu Pomeranz seemed pretty low-key today when talking about his fast rise this season - from a pitcher with Double-A Bowie that just got to Triple-A about 10 days ago and now is with the Orioles and has been activated today. When he gets into his first Orioles game, he will make his major league debut at 27. He had some personal issues and some injuries in recent years and admitted this afternoon there were plenty of times when he figured he would never make it onto a major league...

With the media crowd that was gathered around Chris Davis' locker a few minutes, you had to figure he must have done something big lately. "I had about 60 texts after the game from people just giving me a hard time, (saying) I should have been pitching this whole time and the usual stuff. But everyone said they were proud of the way I hung in there and proud of the way the team has been playing," Davis said a day after his two-inning scoreless outing at Boston. "It was a lot of fun. In...

Have the Orioles found a diamond in the rough with Stu Pomeranz? Not only does it appear that they may have, but his fast rise from Double-A Bowie to Triple-A Norfolk now is taking him to the major leagues as Pomeranz is expected to be in Baltimore later today and is quite likely to be added to the Orioles roster to help its taxed bullpen starting tonight against Texas. The 27-year-old, right-handed pitcher, a second-round draft pick of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2003 whose career was...

As the Orioles and the rest of us all move on to the remainder of the 2012 season tonight, the prevailing feeling I have looking back at Sunday is what a great performance we saw on the mound by Chris Davis. You hear managers often tell a player having a tough game at the plate to hang in there and keep grinding because they might get another chance. Who knew Davis' would come on the mound? It is remarkable to think he was the winning pitcher in a game where he went 0-for-8 at the plate with...

Well, that was just amazing and remarkable. In a game that took 17 innings and more than six hours, the Orioles beat the Red Sox 9-6. It ended with Chris Davis getting the win on the mound and because Adam Jones hit a three-run homer off outfielder Darnell McDonald, who pitched the top of the 17th for the Red Sox. It was won because the Orioles made a sensational relay play - Jones to J.J. Hardy to Matt Wieters - to the plate to cut down a potential winning run by Boston in the last of the...

Here is a stat that gets your attention: Through today's fourth inning - with the Orioles leading 5-1 at Boston - the Orioles have outscored the Yankees and Red Sox on the road by a combined score of 31-8 since Tuesday. * Tuesday won 7-1 at New York * Wednesday won 5-0 at New York * Friday won 6-4 in 13 innings at Boston * Saturday won 8-2 at Boston * Today leading 5-1 after four innings at Boston The last four years, the Orioles went 10-26 at Fenway Park and 9-27 at Yankee Stadium. With a...

On Sept. 1, 2007 Boston right-hander Clay Buchholz pitched a no-hitter against the Orioles in just his second major league start. That seems pretty unlikely to happen today with the Orioles' offense starting to percolate and Buchholz pitching very poorly this year. The Orioles have scored 42 runs over their last seven games and Buchholz is 3-1 with an ERA of 8.69 over five starts. In 29 innings, he has allowed 40 hits and seven homers. He has given up five runs or more in every start this...

The Orioles' amazing run to a record of 18-9 and a four-game win streak this week at New York and Boston has been led by the pitching. But now there are signs that the Orioles' offense is about to get into the act. The Orioles still lead the American League in team ERA at 2.76 and the rotation ERA is 1.99 over the last 12 games, a stretch during which they are 10-2. But over the last seven games, the Orioles' offense has produced 72 hits, a team average of .288, 15 doubles, one triple,...

After the Orioles' latest victory, who should I give more credit to, the hitters or the starting pitcher? Jason Hammel gave the Orioles another quality start and the hitters backed him with a seven-run third inning as the Orioles routed Boston today 8-2 at Fenway Park. By taking the first two games of this series, the Orioles have a chance, with a win tomorrow, for their first three-game sweep at Fenway Park since June 10-12, 1994. The Orioles have now won six of their past seven and eight...

Here are some notes from each of the Orioles' full-season affiliates: Triple-A Norfolk's Ryan Adams enters today's 5:05 p.m. contest with Durham riding an eight-game hitting streak, during which he's hit .344 (11-for-32) with two home runs, three doubles, two RBI and six runs scored. Eleven of Adams' 23 hits have gone for extra bases, as he is tied for second in the International League with nine doubles. A hit today would give him Norfolk's longest hitting streak of 2012, surpassing...