The Baltimore Orioles had dropped the series opener against the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday.
The weather didn’t allow the two teams to get on the field on Tuesday, but the series continued on Wednesday and every indication pointed towards the Blue Jays taking the second game as well.
Yusei Kikuchi and the middle relievers dominated the vaunted O’s offense, and Toronto reached the bottom of the ninth up, 2-1.
They called their closer, Jordan Romano, to help them secure the W.
The end result, however, was Adley Rutschman hitting a two-run walk-off homer off Romano and Baltimore winning, 3-2.
The victory was meaningful for a variety of reasons.
One of them is that a sweep is no longer in play.
The Orioles were one of the worst organizations in baseball from 2017 to 2021, a year in which they lost 110 games.
Now, however, they are so good that it’s virtually impossible to sweep them.
“The @Orioles have now gone 105 straight series without being swept!” the league’s official Twitter account wrote.
The @Orioles have now gone 105 straight series without being swept! pic.com/2q7LqZjox6
— MLB (@MLB) May 15, 2024
Thanks to Rutschman, who is now slugging an incredible .509 with a .314 batting average, Baltimore has kept its streak alive.
Everybody swept them in that dark 2017-2021 period, but that’s no longer the case.
Now, they are one of the top squads in the league.
Winning three or four straight against them has proved impossible in recent seasons.
With the kind of young talent on the roster and the sustainability promoted by general manager Mike Elias, the future is bright.
It could be a while before we see Baltimore being swept again.
