Who stood out in the Orioles’ 5-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday night?
In the spirit of hockey’s “three stars” system with the addition of home plate for honorable mentions and other notes, we go around the bases after the 38th game of the 2016 season.
1st — Matt Wieters entered Wednesday with just four extra-base hits on the season before hitting his third home run of 2016 in the second, collecting an RBI double in the fourth, and scoring an insurance run after another double in the eighth. It was the third time in his career in which he registered three extra-base hits in a game and the first one since May 26, 2013 in Toronto. He also made his 700th career start at catcher, becoming the fourth Orioles backstop to accomplish the feat behind Rick Dempsey, Chris Hoiles, and Gus Triandos.
2nd — Chris Tillman continued his early-season roll by winning his fifth straight start, completing 6 1/3 innings and allowing two runs and four hits while striking out six and walking three. Despite giving up his first homer since April 8 — a stretch of 44 2/3 innings between long balls — Tillman has now struck out at least six hitters in each of his last five starts. He ran his record to 6-1 and now has recorded six consecutive quality starts to match his career high. Tillman is now 7-0 with a 2.96 ERA in nine career starts against the Mariners, who traded him to Baltimore as part of the Erik Bedard trade in 2008.
3rd — Zach Britton recorded his first five-out save since Aug. 10, 2015 — also against Seattle — and did his best work in the eighth when he inherited a bases-loaded, one-out situation in a 4-2 game and proceeded to strikeout Dae-Ho Lee and induce a grounder from Chris Iannetta to escape the jam. The lefty is now 11-for-11 in save situations to begin the season and passed Jorge Julio for sole possession of fifth place on the Orioles’ all-time saves list with 84 in his career.
Home — Mark Trumbo hit a long home run to left in the second inning to put the Orioles on the board early after Tuesday night’s shutout and added a single and a run scored in the fourth. He is now leading the club with 12 home runs on the young season. … Joey Rickard has reached base safely in 11 consecutive games, his second on-base streak of 11 or more games this season. … Making his major-league-best 200th consecutive start, Manny Machado has only one hit in his last 22 at-bats. … The Orioles will send Tyler Wilson to the hill in search of a series win on Wednesday afternoon while Seattle starts right-hander Nathan Karns.
