A few notes on a huge night of O's offense

By Steve Melewski

Orioles

September 14, 2020, 6:09pm

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After a weekend where the Orioles scored three runs in four losses at Yankee Stadium, we didn't have to wait long to see if the club would break out tonight.

The Orioles led 10-0 by the third inning and the top four in their order were putting up crazy numbers. They piled it on to beat the first-place Atlanta Braves 14-1 in a blowout win to start a three-game series and eight-game homestand against first-place teams.

In the four games at New York, the Orioles batted .138 (16-for-116) and went 2-for-20 with runners in scoring position.

Tonight they scored nine runs in the last of the third inning. Through the fifth inning they led 13-0 and were 13-for-27 at-bat, going 9-for-13 with RISP.

Crazy, yes. Very much so.

Through the fifth inning, the top four in their order - Cedric Mullins, JosÃ© Iglesias, DJ Stewart and Ryan Mountcastle - were a combined 11-for-15 with three homers and 13 RBIs. They drove in all the runs to that point.

The Orioles improved to 21-26 and snapped a five-game losing streak. They are 11-15 at home and 10-8 versus the National League. Atlanta falls to 28-20.

Here are more notes on a crazy night of offense:

* The nine-run inning was the biggest inning of the year. It was the biggest inning since the O's put up nine in the seventh on April 15, 2016 at Texas. That big inning allowed that club to rally from four runs down to win 11-5.

* The 14 runs were a season high. The previous best was 11 runs, done three times.

* The Orioles hit three homers run in the third inning. That is more than they've hit in 35 games this year. The team had hit three total homers in the previous five games.

* The Orioles hit back-to-back homers for the fifth time in 2020. Stewart hit a three-run shot in the third for a 4-0 lead. Mountcastle followed with a solo shot. Stewart had not homered in his last two games, but that was his seventh homer in his past nine games. Mountcastle had gone homerless for five consecutive games, hardly much of a drought.

* Pat Valaika hit a solo homer in the last of the seventh when the ball hit Nick Markakis' glove in right and landed over the wall. That gave the O's four homers to match their season high.

* O's starter Jorge LÃ³pez pitched seven innings, the longest outing by an O's starter in 2020. Alex Cobb went 6 2/3 innings on Aug. 17 versus Toronto. This is the fourth time in the last eight games that an O's starter went six or more, but just the seventh time for the season. LÃ³pez allowed just five hits and one run against the team that leads the majors in team slugging and OPS.

* In the last three games, O's starters - Dean Kremer, John Means and LÃ³pez - have allowed three runs over 18 innings.