2018 Topps Living set Manny Machado
Even in the darkest of times there can be a little bit of light. The Orioles are on pace to win about 46 games this season. That means they are on pace to lose....well a lot. There are many nights where they don't play very well. There is an overall lack of excitement in regards to most of the players in the line-up (I like Jace Peterson as much as the next fan, but he's not exactly a building block). The bullpen, once a strength is a rotating cast of characters struggling to string together three outs at a time.
Yet, on a night like last night, baseball can still be fun. The best player in a generation for the team belts two home runs including a Ruthian shot that landed over 440 feet from where contact was made. A struggling hitter slapped a ball the other way to score the winning run. The bullpen held it together and a once-dominant closer showed flashes of his old self in locking down the win. Best of all it came at the expense of the Yankees.
It's small moments like this that will get you through the season.
Seriously, how much fun was that first home run? That baseball was destroyed. Manny Machado took all of his recent frustration with the trade talks (for the first time this season it seems like it might be getting to him) and unloaded it on that innocent baseball. It's good to see his power coming back down the final stretch of his Orioles career.
It might have been the last great game he will have in the orange and white of the Orioles. So remember it fondly. There might not be that many more like it this summer.
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