The Orioles’ Once-Shattered Faith Is Restored : Three Years After Start of Major Decline, Team’s Back on the Rise

Three years ago Sunday, the Orioles’ grand decline began. Sitting 2 1/2 games out of first place in the American League East, they rallied from six runs behind at Memorial Stadium to take an 11-6 lead against the Texas Rangers, but, in a game that included three grand slams, the Rangers rallied to win, 13-11. More than one Oriole later said he felt ominous stirrings that night, fretting that the loss, though only one of many, had sliced deeply into the team’s resolve.

They were right, of course, and they had no idea how deep the cut actually would go. The Orioles lost 42 of their last 56 games that season, finishing in last place for the first time in their history. The next year, they lost 95 games. Last year, they lost their first 21 games, 107 in all. All that obviously can’t be attributed to one loss, but that game certainly was the moment when the Orioles were transformed from winners into losers.

It was demonstrated Sunday that, as the cliche goes, baseball does indeed even out eventually. On a miserably hot, humid day, the Rangers gave back whatever it was they took from the Orioles that night in 1986. The standings will show the Orioles won in 10 innings, 3-2, on a Mike Devereaux home run, but what really happened was the Rangers gave away a game, and, in the process, renewed the Orioles’ faith, which had been in remission.

The Orioles began the bottom of the ninth behind, 2-1, and their first three batters hit balls that should have been outs. There were groundballs to the first baseman and shortstop, and a flyball to right field; the first two were easy plays, the third deep but not difficult. A major-league team, which the Rangers have been for most of their years in Texas, should have closed out the game with a 1-2-3 inning.

Had the Rangers done so, the Orioles would have lost for the 14th time in their last 17 games, and their division lead would have shrunk to 1 1/2 games. There would have been little reason to think the malaise that had gripped them since mid-July was abating. But the Rangers fell apart and the Orioles converted the opportunity, and in the Orioles clubhouse afterward, the talk was about fortitude, not the pitching slump and Mickey Tettleton’s injury.

“I have a good feeling,” manager Frank Robinson said. “We’re starting to put things back together and play consistently again. From Day 1, our philosophy has been to not beat ourselves. If you don’t, and we hung tough today, you have a chance to win. If the other team doesn’t put us away, we hang around and hang around. We’ve won a lot of those games.”

Whether this minor miracle makes a difference remains to be seen, but the difference it made in the Orioles’ outlook was almost immeasurable. Their clubhouse was jubilant, as if the calender had been moved back two months, to when it seemed every game was a party for these improbable contenders.

“We needed that bad,” said first baseman Randy Milligan, who drove in the tying run in the ninth. “We needed to get that (2-12) road trip out of our minds, and I think we’re starting to do it.”

The Orioles have won nine games in their last at-bat and 23 coming from behind this season. This time, they really prolonged the drama. Phil Bradley began the ninth with an easy grounder to Texas first baseman Rafael Palmeiro. One out. Texas starter Kevin Brown had a six-hitter working, and, Robinson said, “It looked like he was going to beat us.”

The next batter was Cal Ripken, who hit another routine groundball, this one to shortstop Jeff Kunkel. He fielded the ball cleanly, but, as he did on a similarly important play in the ninth inning Friday, threw errantly. Palmeiro came off the bag to catch the ball and tried to tag Ripken as he ran past, but missed.

The next batter was Keith Moreland, who hit a ball deep to right field. Moreland thought for a moment it might be a home run, which would have won the game, but Texas’ Ruben Sierra slowed near the wall, turned and put up his glove. “I thought he was getting ready to catch it,” Moreland said.

But he did not. The ball missed his glove entirely and bounced up against the wall, Moreland winding up at second base, Ripken at third. The game should have been over, but instead there was Milligan working reliever Jeff Russell to a 3-2 count, fouling off two pitches and lining a soft drive into center field for a single, scoring Ripken. The Orioles did not score again that inning, even though they had the bases loaded and one out, but Devereaux made up for that the next inning.

It was all a coincidence that bordered on the mystical. On the anniversary of the defeat that started them on the road to becoming a laughingstock, the Orioles won a game that explained much about their renaissance, invigorated their who-would-have-believed-it division title hopes and, in a fun touch, probably rubbed out what was left of the Rangers’ slim hopes of winning their division.

If the symmetry holds, of course, the Orioles will only go up from here, much as they went down from this date three years ago. We shall see. It certainly will be difficult for them do worse than they did that year. But, hey, even if they do lose 42 of their last 56 games, this year they still might win the division.