Familiarity breeds contempt, is a thing I have definitely heard people say. On Tuesday, yet another Orioles-Yankees matchup headed by Jordan Montgomery and Bruce Zimmermann prompted MASN’s Kevin Brown to quip, “You could be forgiven if you thought Sonny and Cher was playing, but it’s not Groundhog Day!”
Would all this familiarity with Zimmermann’s arsenal mean a lot of contempt—a lot of hard-hit balls by Yankee batters? Tonight … well, it was a weird one for the Orioles’ starter.
Compared to his last five-run, five-inning outing against New York, Zimmermann was certainly better: he pitched into the seventh inning while allowing no walks, notching five strikeouts, and drawing two double play balls—the Orioles’ MLB-leading 55th and Zimmermann’s MLB-leading 11th.