After watching Josh Hamilton set an American League record with 18 total bases in one game on Tuesday night, the Orioles set an American League record in the first inning of Game 1 of the doubleheader today. The Orioles became the first AL team to ever hit three straight homers to start a game in a 6-5 win over the Texas Rangers behind left-hander Wei-Yin Chen. Ryan Flaherty led off the game against Rangers right-hander Colby Lewis and sent a 1-0 pitch over the right-field wall. J.J. Hardy...

The Orioles signed Steve Tolleson as a minor league free agent in November. After showing a hot bat in some recent games with Triple-A Norfolk, the 28-year-old was added to the O's roster yesterday, and he figures to play in a utility role while here. This will be his second time in the majors. In 25 games with Oakland in 2010, Tolleson hit .286 over 49 at-bats. "It was a great experience," he said. "I went up as a utility guy for Oakland, and I knew my role. I thought I did a really good...

It has been a frustrating start to the season for Orioles reserve outfielder Endy Chavez. After hitting .301 last year with Texas, he is batting just .133 in 20 games with the Orioles and now he is headed for the disabled list. Chavez will be officially put on the DL at some point today, likely after Game 1, to allow the Orioles to recall Tommy Hunter from the minors to pitch tonight's second game of the doubleheader with Texas. "They said on the MRI the oblique is fine (showing no...

It took place out of public and media view, but a nice thing happened this week at Camden Yards. The Texas Rangers organization took time to thank several current Orioles for helping their team win the American League championship last year and they presented several of those players with their 2011 AL championship rings. Here is the list of Orioles that were on that 2011 team: * Chris Davis had 76 at-bats * Endy Chavez made 66 starts with 256 at-bats and hit .301 for Texas in 2011 * Pedro...

The big question is: Can the Orioles slow down the Texas Rangers offense today when the teams play a doubleheader starting at 4:05 p.m.? It has been a while since the Orioles have done that. They have lost seven in a row against the Rangers and have been outscored 70-18 in those games, giving up 13 runs or more four times. In that stretch, Texas has 101 hits, including 23 doubles and 16 homers, along with a team batting average of .378 against O's pitching. In the two games of this series,...

Former Oriole Brandon Snyder, now with Texas after being sold to that club by the Orioles in a cash transaction in January, had a good view of Josh Hamilton's historic four-homer game here on Tuesday night. "It was awesome," Snyder said. "I got to the see the first two from the dugout and actually the last two from the bullpen. We were sitting there saying 'wouldn't it be cool if he hit three.' Then he hit four. It was unbelievable. "He's one of the best players in this game for a...

Orioles relief pitcher Matt Lindstrom was asked today what the Orioles pitchers should try to do the next two nights in this series to slow this hot-hitting Texas Rangers team. "I know that people are making a big deal out of this whole hit by pitch thing and what is on purpose and what's not on purpose, but the fact of the matter is, we have to make sure that guys aren't as comfortable as they are in the batter's box," Lindstrom said. "That is just part of the game. If you are going...

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...