It should never have come to that

Fresh off of a successful road trip that saw the O’s rebound with two straight wins after a crushing loss to New York Friday night, the birds faced off against a Chicago White Sox squad that sent their ace Chris Sale to the bump last night at Camden Yards.

Bobby Dickerson

Adam Jones got the night off to a rocking start with a line drive two-run homer off the top of the wall in left center field in the bottom of the first.

However, after the two-run first inning things got dicey for Baltimore. Chicago began to slowly but surely chip away and in subsequent innings the O’s left a trainload of base runners stranded.

In the fourth the O’s failed to score with one out and the bases loaded against lefty Chris Sales. O’s third base coach Bobby Dickerson refused to send Manny Machado from third after he had tagged up on a medium depth fly ball to right field off the bat of Steve Pearce. The throw which would have had to be near perfect came in way up the line and Machado could have scored easily.

Unfortunately, Dickerson, who is having a forgettable year making stop and go decisions as the O’s third base coach has, on several occasions, held runners when the opposition was already conceding the run. Dickerson pretty much did this again an inning later last night when J.J. Hardy’s nineteen hop ground ball squeezed through the left side of the Sox infield. With Nelson Cruz running on contact from second, the O’s getting at least one run out of that frame was a foregone conclusion. The Hardy ground ball was slowing to a crawl on its way to left field and Cruz could have scored standing up. However, inexplicably, Dickerson tightened up mentally and ultra-cautiously threw up the dreaded stop sign for Cruz. Chicago's ace Sales capitalized on the Dickerson judgment error and the O’s stranded all three base runners for the second inning in a row.

Chris Davis

Perhaps Dickerson relays signs from manager Buck Showalter quite well. However, any realistic appraisal of his decision-making at third this season would have him optioned to Norfolk, designated for assignment, or re-trained at another position. He simply cannot make enough good decisions to continue in that spot.

The biggest story in the media this morning will not be the momentum stopping over-caution of Dickerson in the third base coaching box. It will be the Chris Davis walk-off three-run bomb in the bottom of the ninth to give the O’s their third straight win. People paying close attention including Showalter know that squandering run scoring opportunities created by the O's bats is not something that the team can afford from their third base coach. It has already happened way too many times this year.

Amazingly, after a strong outing from Wei-Yin Chen, decent relief by Webb and Brach, and fourteen other hits by O’s, the team needed the dramatic pinch hit Davis smash to win the game.

The O's take on Chicago again tonight at Camden Yards with Miguel Gonzales on the hill. They are just 1.5 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays for first place in the A.L. East.