Baltimore Orioles achieve ‘unusual’ success in 2012 MLB regular season – MLB Feature
Baltimore Orioles have been a team that has seen little success in the last decade and a half. After an amazing 1997 season, the team maintained a steady downward trend that continued all the way to 2011 with more defeats then victories for 14 seasons at
a trot.
There wasn’t much anticipation of success in 2012 and even the most die-hard fans were finding little hope of reversal in fortunes. Against the odds, the year turned out to be one of the best the team has experienced in ages.
The birds really showed their class and fought all the way through the 2012 season. Their will to go forward carried them into the post-season for the first time in 15 years. For the team that was 28 games behind the Division winners New York Yankees last
year, this was no mean feat. Despite of losing to the Yankees in Game 5 of a hard fought American League Division Series, the achievements of the team were phenomenal.
This unexpected outcome had many unexpected twists and turns along the way. There were many aspects of the team’s success that can only be described as being unusual in nature. For starters, the Orioles played some games that went really deep into extra
innings. In the regular season, they played 16 such games and were victors in every single one of them. They remained just one shy of an all time record made by the Cleveland Indians in 1949.
Nine of these 16 matches went up to 12 innings or more. They also ended up winning games in the 17th
and 18th innings in the same year, a feat previously only achieved by Atlanta Braves in 1988.
The Birds also managed an extra innings hitting record, with Adam Jones hitting four home-runs in the 11th innings or later. No other hitter has managed this feat in the history of Major League Baseball.
They even went into extra innings games in the post-season, losing Game 3 of ALCS in 12th innings, Orioles first extra innings defeat of the year. They managed to avenge this defeat in the very next game when J.J.Hardy hit an RBI double in the
13th innings to allow the Orioles a 2-1 triumph, pushing the series into a decisive Game 5.
Another telling statistic for the Birds this season was their unbeaten run when they had a lead in the seventh inning. The team managed an amazing 74 consecutive wins from the position in the regular season. The stats speak volumes of the abilities of the
bullpen that the Orioles posses.
Jim Johnson was the main architect of many of those saves, with an amazing 47 saves in 2012. This is a franchise record for the Baltimore Orioles for a single season by any pitcher.
The relieving pitcher was also the recipient of the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award which is awarded to one of 30 club players for on and off the field positive contributions including community work and sportsmanship.
We can certainly expect the Baltimore Orioles to play well in coming seasons and hope that the current performance will be sustained in the future. We can conclude with the some fantastic remarks Orioles’ Chairman and CEO Peter Angelos made.
"For a long period of time, as you gentlemen and ladies have stressed frequently, there was a long, long arid period," said Angelos, who briefly talked with a large number of reporters, "I hope this will be the case, the year that we mean business, and in
the future you can depend on this kind of a performance and hopefully much better."
The Orioles will be looking to improve on the good work they did all season and enter Spring Training with a renewed conviction to win.
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