Manny Machado Becomes The Youngest Oriole To Hit 150 Career Home Runs In A 9-4 Orioles Win Over The Rays
Quite a night for Manny Machado as he continues his monster season. He lead the Orioles to their third win in a row as they creep within 15 games of the Yankees and RedSox. Just like that, they’re back in the AL East race (wink wink). Macahdo got the Orioles on the board in the bottom of the 1st with a 2-run shot, but he wasn’t done for the night.
The 25-year-old free agent to be stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th with the Orioles up 4-1. I asked a simple question on Twitter.com that said “We doing Grand-Slams for Manny?” The answer was yes. That Grand Slam was the third in two nights for Machado, and the 150th homer of Machado’s career, and according to the Orioles, he became the youngest Oriole ever to hit 150 homers. Manny set the record with the age of 25 years and 309 days. Manny also became the 4th quickest to 150 home runs (802 games) with the Orioles, behind Chris Davis (587), Rafael Palmiero (623), and Frank Robinson (689). Some decent names on that list. That grand-slam for Manny was his 8th career granny, and according to Rich Dubroff of Pressboxonline.com, he joins Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr. as the only players to have 8 grand-slams before their 26th birthday. This game was also his 4th multi-homer game of the season.
Pretty crazy to think about Machado being the youngest to 150 as an Oriole considering how many games he missed due to his knee injuries. The fact that he also was the 4th quickest is pretty wild too, again, considering the injuries and time missed. We’ve really seen his home run power come around the last few years. When he came up, we saw the doubles numbers and kept saying “wait till he grows into his body and those doubles become homers”. Well in 2015 they started becoming homers, and since the beginning of that year he has hit 117 of those 150 career bombs. I can’t talk enough about how impressive it is for Manny to get his 150th career homer because of the injuries he has overcome. He had 2 major knee surgeries before he was 23, there was talk about if he would ever be able to fully recover and be the player we saw glimpses of. I think it’s safe to say he is more than healthy and healed up and he is EVERYTHING AND MORE that we thought he would be.
A special night for Manny as he continues to RAKE and prove that he’s one of the best players in the game. It’s almost as if he’s worth spending money on and giving him an extension, hmm, weird. His numbers this year are near the top of every category, batting .354, 12 homers (second in the league to Mookie Betts), 35 driven in, .440 OBP, .667 slugging %, and an OPS of 1.107. The guy is having the incredible year we all thought he would in the last year of his deal.
Congrats to Manny on the milestone homer with the Orioles, I’d give my leg for them to resign him so he could hit another 450 or so homers in that Orange and Black.
I’ll touch on the game last night real quick too since there is finally something to talk about with the offense (32 runs in the last 4 games). Mark Trumbo finally joined the homer party with his first of the year. After missing most of the season, Trumbo came back a few weeks ago and has actually looked really good at the plate. Since returning to the club on May 1st, he’s had a hit in every game except 2, and has had 5 multi-hit games. Kevin Gausman had another really good performance, piggy backing on the best start of his career last week (9 IP, 2 hits, 6 Ks, 2 BB, 0 R) by going 7.1 innings, he did give up 11 hits, but only 2 runs and struck out 6 with 0 walks. That performance lowers his ERA to 3.18. Love to see Gausman take that step forward. I will also say it’s great to have Jonathan Schoop back, let’s just look at this game-ending double play by the best double play combo in the league.
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Old fashioned get 2 games for the price of 1 today at Camden Yards as the Orioles take on the Rays for a double header, David Hess is making his MLB debut today so let’s see what the young kid can do. #ShootChrisTillmanToTheMoon #ShootChrisTillmanToTheMoon #ShootChrisTillmanToTheMoon #ShootChrisTillmanToTheMoon #ShootChrisTillmanToTheMoon #ShootChrisTillmanToTheMoon #ShootChrisTillmanToTheMoon