The magical season for the Orioles continues.
Baltimore defeated the Texas Rangers in Arlington 5-1 on Friday night to advance to the division round of the playoffs. It will be the first time the Orioles have played in the divisional round since 1997.
"With our team, it's just a bunch of guys that raised the bar and wouldn't give in and still haven't. Now they get a chance to win to roll the dice, and there's a lot of good card players in there," manager Buck Showalter said to the Associated Press.
Baltimore starter Joe Saunders, who had lost all six of his career starts in Texas, was stellar, pitching 5.2 innings, allowing one run and striking out four while giving up just six hits.
"Real proud of everybody. Tacking on runs were big, knew they were going to run at you," Showalter said. "But just a real proud moment for us. Our guys approached it and we talked about it being sudden life instead of sudden death, and we played that way. You've got to seize the opportunity. We don't get many."
The Rangers now are sent home wondering what might have been. The team lost out on the AL West division on the final day of the season to the Oakland Athletics after blowing a historic five game lead with nine games to go.
"We just didn't get it done," manager Ron Washington said.
Texas starter Yu Darvish was sharp through the sixth inning, but gave up three runs and five hits while striking out seven.
"Me and my teammates and the Rangers' fans, I don't think we all thought that it would end this early," Darvish said through a translator. "I mean, right now, no. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do tomorrow."
Baltimore took an early 1-0 lead on a J.J. Hardy single, bur Texas quickly tied it up in the bottom of the inning, with Elvis Andrus scoring on double play.
In the sixth inning Adam Jones hit a sacrifice fly to score Hardy and in the next inning Nate McLouth hit an RBI single to score Robert Andino to take a 3-1 lead.
"I'm not stunned; I was right there watching it," Washington said.
The Orioles bullpen was strong, pitching a combined three innings and allowing no runs. During the season the Orioles were 74-0 leading after 7 innings and continued that streak on Friday night.
Jim Johnson came into the game to close things out, allowing the bases to get loaded. But he finished things off, just like he did during the season when he amassed 51 saves.
The Orioles spent most of the season battling the Yankees for the AL East division title and the now they will get another chance to play against them.
"Our main job tonight was be as calm as we could and not try to do too much," Saunders said. "I think we did that to the best. We just clawed and scratched our way to a couple runs, and played great defense."
Josh Hamilton had a rough game for Texas just two days after he dropped a fly ball that allowed Oakland to take the lead in the final game of the season. Hamilton was 0-for-4 and struck out twice.
The game had less drama than the Atlanta-St. Louis game, but for the Orioles it was a historic win. The team had not made the playoffs in over 10 years and now will be able to play at least two games in front of their home fans in the next round of the playoffs.
"I love being the underdog. To knock off the defending two-time champs from the past couple of years is pretty amazing, I think," Saunders said.
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