The Baltimore Orioles have been one of the best stories in Major League Baseball this season, and ESPN appears to be paying attention.
On Thursday, ESPN announced that the Orioles would host Sunday Night Baseball at Oriole Park at Camden Yards for the first time since 2018. On July 30th, the Orioles’ matchup with the New York Yankees will be featured in the weekly primetime window.
As usual, Karl Ravech, Eduardo Perez, and David Cone will call the game, with Buster Olney reporting. There will not be an edition of the KayRod Cast on ESPN2 for this game.
Last year, the Orioles were the designated home team in MLB’s Little League Classic in Williamsport against the Boston Red Sox on Sunday Night Baseball.
At 54-35 heading into the second half of the season, Baltimore has been a fantastic story. The team has the third-best record in all of baseball, sitting just two games out of first place in the AL East. Given their success, a Sunday Night Baseball appearance had to be in the cards for the second half of this season. ESPN felt the same and didn’t waste much time inserting the team into the first open slot on the schedule.
That 2018 Orioles team wasn’t a classic. They lost 115 games, and were a shocking 37-93 for their August 26th matchup with the Yankees (who would go on to win 100 games). No one that took the field for Baltimore that night is still with the organization, though to be fair, only three of the Yankees are still with the franchise.
The team has a handful more Sunday games the rest of the way that could also get bumped into primetime, including September 3rd against the equally surprising Diamondbacks and September 17th against the first-place Rays.
In addition to the Sunday night game on July 30th, ESPN announced a midweek matchup for earlier that week. The Braves-Red Sox game on Wednesday, July 26th will now exclusively air on ESPN.
[ESPN]
About Joe Lucia
I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.