O's offense has struggled at home, Machado spreads baseball wisdom in Frederick

After spending two days covering Manny Machado playing in Frederick, I'm heading back to cover the big leaguers at Camden Yards today.

I hear it's the same game, but the ballparks are bigger and the players are paid a little better.

The Orioles won in walk-off fashion last night when Nick Markakis plated the winning run with a single down the left field line with the bases loaded. There are probably not many players that could have hit the backdoor slider thrown to Markakis there the way he did to end the game. Nice piece of hitting.

Meanwhile, what is going on with the O's offense between home and road games? In 10 home games, the Orioles have averaged just 2.5 runs per game. In 13 road games they have averaged 6.2 runs per game.

The Orioles have scored 2, 2, 3, 0, 2, 3, 7, 3, 0 and 3 runs in those home games with a batting average of just .231 at Camden Yards. That is three runs or less in nine of 10 games. It's strange, and it is certain to change a bit as the sample size grows and the season wears on.

Meanwhile, I want to pass along majors props to the Single-A Frederick Keys staff for how well they handled big crowds and a lot of media requests the last two days, especially Friday. Somehow they got the field ready to play after Friday's torrential rains there. The crowds were enthusiastic and a total of 13,314 fans watched the games the last two days.

Frederick is a well-run franchise that plays in a great baseball area and has been drawing well for years. The Keys staff was up to the challenge the last two days.

Fans at Harry Grove Stadium could look out on the field yesterday when the Keys were on defense and see the two youngest players in the lineup playing alongside one another on the left side of the infield.

Machado, 21, was at third base and Adrian Marin, 20, was at shortstop.

Both are from Miami, both were drafted out of high school by the Orioles and both were drafted as shortstops.

I'm sure all the Keys players looked to step up their games with Manny in town, but Marin did so on defense Saturday, making a few nice plays, including a tremendous leaping catch of a liner at short in the ninth.

Frederick manager Luis Pujos thought Marin was pretty keyed up to play alongside Manny.

"I think that got Marin a little bit excited today. He made that play on that line drive," Pujols said. "I don't think I've seen Marin jump that high. It's been good (having Machado here) for the team and we can all learn from that."

It's interesting in that Machado is younger than a lot of Keys players, but none of them have played in the big leagues. Machado said they took advantage of his experience to pick his brain some over the last two days.

"They have come up to me and asked me questions," Machado said Saturday. "Which is great. I would have done the same thing when I was in their shoes. Asked me about my hitting approach, my grounders, whatever it may be. They pick your brain and that's a great thing."

For all the Frederick players, even if you are not a shortstop from Miami.