The Orioles bounced back from a 6-0 deficit to win, 9-6, in 10 innings Friday night against the Minnesota Twins.
Among the highlights was Jim Johnson breaking Randy Myers' club record with his 35th consecutive regular-season save (dating back to last year).
Here's some of the postgame chatter from the clubhouse:
Johnson on his record-setting 35th consecutive save: “I wasn’t thinking about it obviously. I was just thinking about watching us chip away. I thought it was a great team win. Everybody kind of chipped in. … Good effort out of the bullpen, guys had great at-bats and we ended up pulling it out.”
Johnson on whether breaking Myers consecutive saves’ record means something special: “It’s not really anything I’m focused on. It’s great, but our ultimate goal is our team record at the end of the year and going further than that. Personal achievements are always second.”
Manager Buck Showalter on Johnson setting the record: "That's very important for our success. Jimmy has really been as solid as you can ask of anybody. Whether it's a three-run lead or a one-run lead, he's a guy who cares about doing the job for his teammates. I'm just proud of the way he handles his success. Jimmy acts like it's the first save he's ever had. It's never a look at me mentality. It's look at our team. I'm proud of Jimmy, and I know his parents are.”
Showalter on his team’s ability to rally: "It's not a club that panics. I've told you many times. It's a mature group. Even though it's the youngest team in our division. They stay within each other and do what they do. Guys don't try to hit five-run home runs. Just got a lot of people who strung a lot of good at-bats together and kept grinding it out.”
Showalter on rallying without a homer: "It's one of the things people miss. It's not like football or basketball, where you're playing the same type of court of field every time with the same dimensions. There's different conditions. You probably could make the case for how many home runs would have been hit tonight in our ballpark. Of course, they would have had a couple, too. But we played here.”
Showalter on the bullpen: “One of the keys for us was getting the innings out of Mac and Tommy. You look at that game, and to think you really only used two pitchers with the exception of Jimmy out of the bullpen, that's impressive, the job they did over more than just one or two hitters."
Showalter on starter Jason Hammel: "He had one real crisp inning. I thought he was getting ready to have another one, maybe give us five or six, but he hit Willingham with an 0-2 breaking ball. I think he's having a little trouble repeating his delivery right now. He's getting out of his delivery a little bit. Talking to Rick and watching, there's some mechanical things you watch for with each pitcher once you get to know them. He'll do it for a few pitches and then he'll just get out of it. Rick was talking about his work day and warming up before the game as good as you'd want to see any guy warm up, but sometimes the emotions when you get out in a game kind of work against you."
Hammel on his outing: “It’s been a grind from the get-go, honestly. Really not much to say about myself. The way the team battled back after I put them in a deep hole; the bullpen to come in and hold it strong there. And then, like I said last week, you stick around long enough, these guys are going to put up some runs. I mean, nine runs in four innings from these guys, that’s impressive.”
Hammel on whether he felt he struggled again with his fastball: “Yeah, fastball command. It’s not like I was falling behind guys; I kind of was, but not as bad. But finishing pitches. You know, when I’ve got two strikes, ahead in the count, I’m still making hittable pitches so I’ve got to do better at finishing hitters.”
Outfielder Chris Dickerson on the comeback: “This was so casual, nonchalant, like, ‘OK, 6-0. We are going to come back.’ Very rarely do you ever experience that where you knew that, the team knew we were going to come back and win. It was amazing.”
Dickerson on the team’s attitude: “I almost think the team enjoys playing from behind. With an attitude like that it’s like, ‘Ok, we are going to come back.’ The team has been so incredibly resilient and everybody just working within the team, putting together good at-bats, playing basically in every facet of the game, minus the defense in the first inning on my part. I don’t think anybody had a doubt as to us coming back and making up that deficit and that showed.”
Dickerson on what it says that the comeback included no homers: “That we are double machines.”
Reliever Tommy Hunter on the bullpen: “We're throwing the ball well. We're called up and we're doing our job. It's about all we can do right now. We keep getting the ball. We're going to keep throwing innings. Hopefully, we keep winning games like this. We give our team a chance to win, and these guys are going to hit. Just give them time, and they'll come through. They did it tonight.”
DH Nick Markakis on the comeback: "Any win is big, but to come (back) down by six, the first game of the series is definitely huge, a momentum builder. They scored six early, and we got a lot of game left.”