O's went 13-9 in challenging 22-game stretch vs. winning record clubs

Sunday’s game against Texas ended a 22-game run for the Orioles against clubs with winning records. After playing a much softer schedule before this stretch, this span of games showed us the Orioles, who earlier beat some second-division clubs, can beat some good teams too.

With Sunday's 3-2 win over Texas the Orioles went 4-2-1 in the seven series and 13-9 in those 22 games against Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, the Los Angeles Angels, Toronto, the New York Yankees and Texas.

Going 13-9 produced a .591 win percentage, which over a full season, would produce 96 wins. Playing that schedule at a 96-win pace is more than holding your own.

There was an impressive series win over the Tampa Bay Rays where they lost the first game. The 5-1 road trip to Toronto and New York. Even in losing the series at Atlanta to begin this run on May 5, they lost a pair of one-run games in that series, one that went 12 innings.

The Orioles showed the league and any remaining doubters, that they can play with good clubs and have set themselves up to contend for a playoff spot this year.

Before Sunday's game, where the O's avoided the sweep with a 3-2 win, manager Brandon Hyde talked about his team during this tough stretch.

"I think we didn't play our best baseball the last couple of games and those days are going to happen," he said. "But going into this series I was proud of our club and what we kind of went through on that road trip. I think it honestly took a lot out of us, 5-1, playing three extra-inning games, every game being close and the intensity of those games. It was borderline late September-pennant race atmosphere in Toronto and New York.

"But yeah, I'm happy with how we have played against some really good teams so far this year. ... It's been a good stretch. A tough month and we've played good baseball," he said.

“The record against the winning teams in this league proves we come ready to play every day,” outfielder Ryan McKenna said. “It speaks to the environment that the front office has created and the clubhouse and the guys that have been brought here and the talent that we have. All of it is coming together and we are playing really good baseball. We are doing some of the little things right. (Adam) Frazier and I have talked about that. He went to the playoffs last year with Seattle and he said a lot of what their focus was to execute on the little things every day.”

You could call it “focused execution.” Sometimes when you are playing the really good teams, the focus is there on every pitch to do the little things that can add up to big wins.

“The game in general - things can be overlooked when maybe we say the big hit happened here. Yeah, but we turned those important double plays with runners in scoring position earlier in the game. We are backing up bases, we are making sure guys don’t take an extra 90 feet. We are taking the walks. We try to prevent those big innings from happening on defense and we are having that next man up mentality at the plate. Fighting and making sure we get someone’s pitch count up. It’s all about playing team baseball and it's been fun,” said McKenna.

And a confident team going into this stretch comes out of it maybe with even more of that.

“Confidence compounds with success and positivity is the kick starter for that. We have really positive energy every day that kind of frees us up to execute and do what we are capable of doing. That is what we are looking to continue to do, and everyone has that in their mindset right now,” McKenna said.

In the 22-game stretch, the Orioles pitching stepped up. While the offense averaged 4.27 runs per game against those quality clubs, the team ERA was 3.46 and the rotation ERA was 3.88 with the club getting 10 quality starts. The bullpen sure had good moments too with an ERA of 2.93 the past 22 games.