O's Adam Frazier on Sunday's big win and the offense working counts so well

At the end of a baseball season, when a team like the Orioles hopes to have enough wins to make the playoffs, victories like Sunday may really seem important. They took a game where they didn’t have a baserunner until the seventh inning and didn’t score until the eighth and they won that game.

Adam Frazier scored the winning run and afterward talked about the importance of turning a potential 1-0 loss into a 2-1 win to sweep the Detroit Tigers.

"Those kinds of wins at the end of the season, they add up," Frazier said Sunday. "That's how you make the playoffs. A lot of good teams can win a series, but to sweep a series is hard to do.”

Frazier pinch-ran for the placed runner at second base to start the bottom of the 10th inning. He advanced to third on a sac bunt and then, with Jorge Mateo batting, scored on a wild pitch thrown by Mason Englert to end the day with the third O’s walk-off win in their past four at home.

“Guy (Eduardo Rodriguez) was throwing a perfect game, so anytime you can steal one like that it means a lot,” Frazier added this afternoon, speaking of the O’s 14^th win. “Those little wins where it looks like you might not win start adding up later in the year.

“You know, a lot of times they might even out, some they sneak from you and some you sneak from them, but hopefully, you sneak a few more.”

Frazier, a veteran of four big league teams and more than 800 major league games, said teams that pull out games like the one Sunday begin to realize they can do that again. It might even get easier the next time.

“Yeah I think so. You start understanding how to make it happen, instead of hoping it happens,” he said. “We put pressure on the defense. Mateo scoring from first on a ball that doesn’t even hit the wall. They didn’t really do a good job of relaying the night before on a ball Ramón (Urías) hit off the wall and it showed up again in that game. It is doing the little things. Playing hard, with heart and with great effort. When you do the little things right, you end up with wins like that.”

The Orioles continue to be a patient team on offense in the early going. Again today they lead the majors as a club in pitches per plate appearance at 4.12, with the next closest team being the Los Angeles Dodgers at 4.06. In team walk rate the Dodgers top the majors at 12.2, with the Orioles next at 11.5.

Frazier said these stats, if sustained, could be big for the club all year in 2023.

“We’re just tougher outs, one through nine," he said. "If you are making their pitchers throw more pitches, then you are going to get into their bullpen earlier and, hopefully, tire out the bullpen as well. Then if you have a three- or four-game series, that can pay off for the next couple of games. So it is just one through nine trying to be tough outs and the whole lineup will be better and can do damage throughout. No free outs there, and it’s going to be tough for a staff to deal with over three of four days in a series."

O’s leaders, pitches per plate appearance

4.48 – Adley Rutschman
4.33 – Adam Frazier and Anthony Santander
4.22 – Gunnar Henderson
4.16 – Cedric Mullins