Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I think I saw a karmic shift last night when the Orioles were winning the opener of their four-game weekend wraparound series against the Chicago White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field.
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Think about it. If I had told you that somebody scored two quick runs after a player reached base on a third-strike wild pitch with two outs, and that same team added five more runs after a dependable shortstop double-clutched a two-out ground ball an inning later, you're probably conditioned to think that the team on the wrong end of that bad fortune would be the Orioles. But that's how the White Sox self-destructed on Friday night.
Meanwhile, the so-called greatest first-round draft bust in recent years is starting to look like one of the best players in the league. Matt Wieters (right) delivered a mammoth two-run homer to give the O's a 5-3 lead and added a two-run double to help break the game open. He's already one of the best defensive catchers around, and he's only scratching the surface at the plate. He's going to be one of the cornerstone players here for a long time.
That said, the Orioles are still sub-.500 and really need to start winning series to establish that they are a clearly superior team to last year's model and to buy more time until Brian Matusz returns to the starting rotation. Winning two of the next three in Chicago would certainly help.
Correction update: I mixed up the circumstances of last night's fortuitous rallies in a previous version of this blog entry. I was trying to watch both the game and the NFL draft and got a little discombobulated. As always, thanks for your understanding.
Associated Press photo