The looks on the faces of those 46,000 Baltimore Orioles fans as they quietly exited Camden Yards on Sunday after a discouraging loss to the Rangers was not one of anger, but of sadness. The fans of Baltimore -- a provincial town, a brick town, a neighborhood town -- had waited almost a decade to celebrate the return of October baseball after such a painful rebuild. Instead, 11 walks later, a giant orange mass of people walked into the darkness in stunned silence.
The 11-8 loss -- it was 9-2 in the third inning -- dropped the Orioles into a 2-0 hole in the best-of-five American League Division Series against Texas, with the series heading to Arlington. And considering the magic with which the relentless Texas Rangers have been playing in this postseason, many of those fans sensed there would be no more baseball this season at Camden Yards.
The Rangers are riding a wave of confidence after sweeping the Rays in the AL Wild Card Series at Tropicana Field, then turning right around and stealing two games at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. This team has bounced back so well from losing the AL West to the Astros after a disappointing final series to the regular season in Seattle, and for the first time since the night of Sept. 26, they’ll get to sleep in their own beds.
“I think if we would have won the division, I would definitely have enjoyed the rest,” said Marcus Semien, “especially playing every single game this year. We have a lot of guys who played a ton of games. But hey, we didn't get that done, and we got to go to [St. Petersburg] and get ourselves in a little rhythm. That's what helped us here in Baltimore.”
Playing their first home game in two weeks, the Rangers treated the Globe Life Field crowd to the kind of rout it had already enjoyed multiple times from afar this month. Texas jumped on opposing starter Dean Kremer in a hurry, putting the game out of hand before Baltimore's offense could even try to settle in against All-Star Nathan Eovaldi, who had zero interest in letting the Orioles bats amass even a hint of momentum to counter.
After a shaky September, Eovaldi was somehow even better than he was last round against Tampa Bay, going seven strong innings, punching out seven, and once again yielding zero walks. Aroldis Chapman did his customary loading of the bases in the eighth before closer José Leclerc calmed things down and closed out the series with four outs.
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