And the Orioles Are in the Win Column!

For the first time in 2010, the Baltimore Orioles are victorious. In another nailbiter, the Orioles defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 5-4 and avoided the sweep. All three games this series were decided by one run.

The Orioles continued to struggle with runners in scoring position tonight going only 3 for 11. That leaves them 6 for 34 in those situations early in the season. Last year the O's were second in the American League in this category hitting .286 in those situations. For a team looking to climb out of the cellar and inch closer to .500 they are going to need to get closer to last year's production.

Enough of the negatives, lets move on to the positives of tonight. Brian Matusz, the 23 year old pitcher making his 9th major league start showed me a great deal of poise tonight. He could have fallen apart in the 3rd inning after walking the bases loaded with nobody out, but Matusz limited the damage to only two runs. The 5 walks from Matusz was very uncharacteristic, so don't expect to see that too much from him this year. He was able to strike out 7, including the final three batters he faced. Again, I am very excited to see where this kid goes this year.

Matt Wieters had another great game at the plate going 2 for 4 with an RBI. Wieters has started the year with 3 multi-hit games.

Garrett Atkins had another good night at the plate going 2 for 4 knocking in 2 runs in the process. Atkins has hit a double in every game this year. It is good to see him getting off to a good start after last year's down year.

Brian Roberts ended his early season slump and ended the night with two hits, including his first double of the season. Roberts also added a stolen base.

Closer Mike Gonzalez probably impressed me the most tonight, even though he made the game interesting the in 9th. I can do without the late inning dramatics from him this year, but the fact that he was able to come in to this game and create an almost identical situation to the one he was in Tuesday and then get out of it impressed me. It showed me that he did not let Tuesday night's blown save mentally affect him.