O's almost sweep Halos in 3 at the Big A

8/18 - Anaheim Stadium

Scotty McGregor vs Mike Witt

Orioles 5, Angels 0

No need to dig deep to find the story of the day.  It begins and ends with Scotty McGregor's masterful 3 hit complete game shutout.  With Rick Burleson leading the game off for California with a clean single to center there was never any no hitter suspense.  The game was scoreless until John "Tonight Let it be" Lowensten hit a 3 run blast in the top of the 4th to get Baltimore's party going.  As we all know the O's for years have lived and died (mostly lived) by the 3 run homer and this game would be a classic example of that.  An RBI double by Rich Dauer in the 5th and a run scoring single by Rick Dempsey rounded out the scoring for the victorious O's.

8/19 - Orioles 7, Angels 5

Mike Flanagan vs Steve Renko

Both starters had nothing.  Flanagan lasted 2/3 more innings than his opposing number, not due to effectiveness, but more due to the benevolence of his manager (Andy Weinrib), who was hoping he'd right his ship so to speak.  Renko on the other hadn't had 5 shutout innings until he was blasted for 5 runs (all earned) in the 6th.  Renko's fate was sealed by the fact that he couldn't even get one batter out in the 6th before hitting the showers.  Doug DeCinces two run double signaled Renko's untimely exit.  There is nothing worse than squandering a big lead.  In one inning California went from being up by 5 to being tied vs a team with superior talent.  Rich Dauer's double in the 7th scored Len Sakata and Doug DeCinces 3rd RBI of the day (a sac fly) scored Rick Dempsey to give the O's a 2 run lead after 7.  Tim Stoddard, who replaced Flanagan went 2 1/3 scoreless innings to earn the win.  Tippy Martinez posted a scoreless 9th for his 3rd save.

8/20 - Angels 6, Orioles 5

Dennis Martinez vs Ken Forsch

It took two late inning comebacks for the Angels to force extras en route to salvaging some sort of respect in this series.  Manager Douglas Zaner had to dig deep into his bag of tricks and preemo strategic skills just to keep this team going.  Down 5-2 in the bottom of the 8th the Angels rallied for 2 to make it 5-4.  Zaner astutely put in John Harris to pinch hit for the stale Freddy Lynn.  Harris came through with a 2 out RBI single.  Butch Hobson followed that with a two out double to make it a 1 run game.  With Tim Stoddard on the bump in the 9th Zaner needed even more magic.  He got that with a 2 out RBI single from Brian Downing, which scored Rick Burelson to force extras.  The bottom of the 10th saw Zaner's strategic genius come through one more time with Larry Harlow chosen to pinch hit for defensive specialist Bobby Clark.  With Hobson on 1st Harlow hit a bullet to second that Dauer had to dive for, but could not field cleanly.  The official scorer gave Dauer an error, but when a ball is hit that hard most scorers would have been inclined to record a safety.  Veteran Rod Carew flew out weakly to center for the second out of the inning, but Rick Burleson lined a hot smash threw the hole to score Bert Campaneris, who pinch ran for Hobson, for the game winner.