ATLANTA -- Winning their most decisive decision in franchise history, the Orioles last night completed a three-game sweep against the Team of the Decade, walloping the overmatched Atlanta Braves, 22-1, at Turner Field. Cal Ripken celebrated the first six-hit and five-run game in franchise history, Mike Mussina (8-3) savored unprecedented support and the Orioles bashed away for 25 hits and multiple runs in all but two innings.
The last time Atlanta looked this bad Sherman had just left town and was headed toward Savannah. The last time the Orioles scored this much was never.
The Orioles' 11 extra-base hits tied the franchise record and included three doubles and a home run by first baseman Will Clark; two home runs, a double and six RBIs from Ripken, who became the first player in franchise history to produce six hits in a game; three hits by right fielder Albert Belle; and two hits worth three RBIs for Mussina.
For at least one remarkable evening, the 25-36 Orioles were unstoppable, piling indignity atop embarrassment against 1996 NL Cy Young
Award winner John Smoltz and the game's best bullpen.
Six times the Orioles have walked into the Braves' baseball theme park and six times they have left winners. It happened two years ago during the team's wire-to-wire romp to the American League East title and it happened this weekend with the Orioles just trying to escape punch-line status.
By winning last night's nationally televised game they constructed their first four-game road winning streak since last Aug. 12-15. The three-game sweep was their first on the road since last July 28-30. While hardly riding a tsunami, the Orioles are 9-9 during a brutal 24-game stretch that includes 18 on the road.
Hey, Bud, can we talk realignment?
The Orioles have become an Atlanta fixture just like a grease dog at The Varsity, a tour of the Cyclorama, an iced down Coke, shooting the 'Hooch or cruising Buckhead on a Saturday night.
Who cares if the Braves enter the weekend with the National League's best record? Give the Orioles three days at the Ted and they crawl out of last place for the first time since April 10 when they were 2-3. They outscored the Braves 33-3 for the weekend.
Three days of trading places left the Braves' vaunted starting rotation bruised beyond recognition. Smoltz's earliest exit in more than a year left the firm of Maddux, Millwood & Smoltz with a collective ERA of 10.67 and 25 hits in 14 1/3 innings. The Braves led for two innings the entire weekend. The Orioles' nine first-inning runs came on 9-for-16 hitting, including four home runs.
Mussina's three RBIs gave Orioles starting pitchers four RBIs for the series, one more than the Braves' team total.
This was no typical beating. The Orioles scored 20 for the first time in their 46-year history, eclipsing the 19 runs against the Cleveland Indians Aug. 28, 1967, 15 months before Mussina was born.
Undermined by their starting pitching for much of this season, the Orioles rolled through this series behind Sidney Ponson, Juan Guzman and Mussina. Ponson and Guzman provided the Orioles' first consecutive complete games since September 1995. Mussina's methodical seven-inning start extended a run in which the rotation has allowed a 1.93 ERA over the last eight games.
Recipient of only three runs in his last three starts -- none of them wins -- Mussina received five before taking the mound last night. The Orioles led 11-0 before the Braves broke through on Ryan Klesko's sacrifice fly to shallow center field in the fourth.
Smoltz, 20-3 in his previous 28 starts, needed 30 pitches to escape a five-run first inning. Each of the first six hitters reached against him, though he picked off Brady Anderson for the first out.
With runners at first and second, Belle extended his post-benching surge with the first of his three hits -- a flared two-strike single that scored Mike Bordick for the first run and proved a bridge to Clark's first double and Ripken's first home run.
The beating continued in the third inning when Belle and Clark smacked back-to-back doubles, Ripken singled and Delino DeShields beat out a chop between the mound and first base. The Orioles led 7-0 and suddenly found themselves beating on a fatigued bullpen featuring Justin Speier and Kevin McGlinchey.
Where to start?
Clark produced the first three-double game of his 14-year career. A sixth-inning home run to center field left him with 10 total bases.
Belle's three hits gave him five in two games since being benched on Friday.
Before getting his sixth hit in the ninth inning, Ripken had the fifth five-hit night of his career but the first since May 5, 1985; his two home runs marked his first multi-homer game since Sept. 15, 1996.
The breakout raised Ripken's average from .298 to .328 -- the first time he's broken .300 since April 28, 1998. Ripken has hit in 11 of his last 13 games and has three homers in the last eight days after managing only four previously.
Once seemingly blocked from a run at 400 home runs this season, Ripken now needs nine in 101 remaining games, a slower pace than what he's already established. His 13 total bases tied a club record he already shared.
Two hits allowed left fielder B. J. Surhoff to jack his hitting streak to 14 games, only one shy of his career-longest streak matched on May 23. Surhoff has 14 RBIs during the streak.
Every Orioles starter except Anderson had hit safely by the seventh inning. He made amends with a two-run single in the ninth. While winning for the first time since May 23, Mussina's proudest moment came in the fifth when he doubled over left fielder Klesko for the first extra-base hit by an Orioles pitcher since Roric Harrison homered on Oct. 3, 1972, the final regular-season game before the American League instituted the designated hitter.
Anderson received his sixth plate appearance before the Braves' No. 7 hitter, Andruw Jones, received his third.
This being Atlanta, where playoff games don't sell out, the Orioles were being cheered as champions by the fifth inning.
Ripken, likely playing the final game of his career at Turner Field, received a standing ovation as he completed his second home run trot. The scene repeated after Ripken doubled in the seventh inning and singled in the ninth.
Record night
Orioles club records broken or tied last night:
Individual
Runs scored: 5, Cal Ripken, tops 4 previously accomplished 38 times
Hits: 6, Ripken, tops 5 previously accomplished six times, most recently by Rafael Palmeiro 5/17/96
Total bases: 13, Ripken, ties record shared by seven players
Team
Runs scored: 22, tops 19 vs. Cleveland 8/28/57
Extra-base hits: 11, ties team record set 4/27/94
Win margin: 21, tops 17, 7/27/69
Orioles tonight
Opponent: Kansas City Royals
Site: Camden Yards
TV/Radio: HTS/WBAL (1090 AM)
Time: 7: 35 Starters: Royals' Kevin Appier (6-4, 4.39) vs. O's Scott Erickson (2-8, 6.69)
Tickets: About 10,000 remain
Calculating Cal
Cal Ripken's night in review:
At-bats: 6
Hits: First Oriole with 6
Doubles: 1
Home runs: 2
Runs: First Oriole with 5
RBIs: 6
Ripken's other big games 5 hits: 3 times previously 3 HRs, 8 RBIs: May 28, 1996, vs. Mariners
Cycle: May 6, 1984, vs. Rangers
Ripken's recent surge
How Ripken has hit before going on the disabled list April 18 and after coming off May 13:
Before
Avg. R H HR RBI
.179 1 5 0 2
After
Avg. R H HR RBI
.367 19 40 7 21
Overall
Avg. R H HR RBI
.328 20 45 7 23
O, Atlanta!
The Orioles have yet to lose in six games in Atlanta. A look:
1997 WP LP Score Big hit(s)
6/13 Key Maddux O's 4-3 Anderson, Palmeiro,
........................................ ........................................Ripken, Surhoff RBIs in
........................................ ....................................... four-run 6th
6/14 Rhodes Borowski O's 6-4 Hoiles' two-run double
........................................ ....................................... in 12th
6/15 Mathews Wohlers O's 5-3 Webster two-run
........................................ ....................................... homer in 10th
1999 WP LP Score Big hit(s)
6/11 Ponson Maddux O's 6-2 Surhoff, Clark,
........................................ .......................................Anderson, Bordick
........................................ ........................................RBIs in five-run 6th
6/12 Guzman Millwood O's 5-0 Anderson, Bordick,
........................................ ........................................Clark HRs in four-run
........................................ .......................................... first
6/13 Mussina Smoltz O's 22-1 Ripken's three-run
........................................ ........................................ homer in five-run first