CHICAGO _ In the span of three pitches _ practically nothing in a game that featured 365 of them and lasted nearly four hours _ the Orioles broke step with the fault that has defined this losing road trip and pushed ahead for a 5-4 win over the Chicago White Sox in the first half of Wednesday's doubleheader at Guaranteed Rate Field.
With the game tied at 4 entering the eighth inning, the Orioles had already left 11 runners on base, including five in scoring position, while managing three hits in 15 at-bats with a runner in scoring position.
So when Richie Martin, who doubled his career extra-base hit total with two Wednesday, tripled to open the eighth inning, it would not have been out-of-character for even the top of the Orioles lineup to leave him there.
But Jonathan Villar golfed the second pitch he saw into center field, deep enough to score Martin on a sacrifice fly, and the Orioles completed a comeback that rescued them from a miserable start to the game and ensured they wouldn't endure a winless road trip, with Andrew Cashner starting the second game Wednesday to try and win this three-game series in Chicago.
The Orioles team that started this game looked nothing like one that might win. From their early offensive struggles _ they left Villar in scoring position twice in the first three innings _ to the three combined errors by third baseman Hanser Alberto, pitcher David Hess and first baseman Renato Nunez that made three of the four runs Hess allowed unearned, it was an uncharacteristic brand of bad from the Orioles.
But they clawed back. The small-ball ideal the Orioles embody finally produced in the fourth inning, when Dwight Smith Jr. scored on a wild pitch/throwing error combination; Stevie Wilkerson pushed across a run with a bases-loaded fielder's choice, then stole second and scored on a two-out double by Martin.
The Orioles tied the game on a double by Smith in the seventh inning, which came after he squared to bunt twice with two on and nobody out, failed to lay one down and swung away.
In between, newcomer Shawn Armstrong, rookie Branden Kline and top reliever Mychal Givens gave the Orioles 14 outs of relief without a run. Even as the Orioles left two in scoring position in the ninth to drop to 3 for 17 with 13 runners stranded, the cushion was large enough for Givens in the ninth.
