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It was a glorious Easter Sunday for the Baltimore Orioles as Jason Hammel had a no-hitter going through seven innings, and they defeated the Minnesota Twins, 3-1, to earn a series sweep.

Right now, the Orioles are 3-0 on the season and are tied for first place in American League East with the Tampa Bay Rays. For a team that was expected to be bad and see their pitching struggle, so far the Orioles have gotten one impressive performance on the mound after another.

On Sunday, it was Hammel’s turn. He went eight strong innings, gave a up a run, and retired 21 hitters in a row before Justin Morneau lined a double – that Nick Markakis inexplicably misplayed.

Newly acquired from the Rockies in a trade for Jeremy Guthrie, the fans at Camden Yards gave Hammel nothing but love after giving up the hit. Josh Willingham plated him in a few moments later; however, the significance of the day was not lost on anyone.

It had to be one of the finest performances by an Oriole pitcher that I’ve seen in a long time.

Baltimore once again got timely hits as J.J. Hardy’s homer – a solo shot - in the first inning gave them a 1-0 lead, and Wilson Betemit’s two-run double in the sixth innings raised the score to 3-0.

That being said, Hammel didn’t need much more on the offensive front by the Orioles.

Jim Johnson came on the mound in the ninth inning and got the save, his second on the year.

Only 14,738 showed up at Camden Yards after a sold-out Opening Day and well over 30,000 on Saturday. It would have been nice to see more fans in the stands, but with Easter and all, it is certainly understandle.

However, the performances that we as fans have seen over this weekend from the Birds have been very impressive. Maybe all the gloom and doom may be unfounded by many concerning this team – but then again, they only have 159 games to go.

Well, Boston and New York are both 0-3 heading into Monday.

Crazy.

The Evil Empire comes into town from Monday-Wednesday, and the Orioles are playing very well. Can the Birds change recent history against the Bombers?

Really, the Orioles must do their best to pitch consistently, avoid walks, challenge the Yankees at the plate and keep them from having the big inning. If they can do that, the Orioles should do well this week.

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For the second time in as many years the Orioles have won their opening series after taking game two from the visiting Minnesota Twins tonight at Camden Yards.

The 8-2 drubbing of the Twins featured three solo shots from the heart of the Orioles lineup. Adam Jones, Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters all connected for solo shots. Robert Andino had a huge two-out two-RBI double in the fourth and Ronny Paulino, making his Oriole debut tonight, had a 4-4 night scoring twice.

Tommy Hunter started for the O's tonight and showed the 31 thousand person crowd what he is here to do: pound the strike zone; let the defense do its job and give the team a chance to win. Hunter lost the strike zone for a bit in the fourth but never broke inducing key grounders to get out of jams. He cruised, more or less, through seven innings of shutout baseball. Well, not quite shutout. In the eighth inning thirdbaseman Mark Reynolds bobbled a grounder allowing Ben Revere to get on. Hunter would give up a couple singles to load the bases before being replaced with Pedro Strop. Strop responded well throwing fire and minimizing the damage. Two unearned runs would score on fielder's choices from Jamey Carroll and Joe Mauer before Strop struk out Morneau on a 95 MPH fastball. Luis Ayala came out for the Orioles in the ninth and he quickly set the Twins down in order to secure the Orioles' second win of the season.

The team looked great tonight, the offense was clicking on all cylinders, Hutner and the rest of the staff was more than serviceable and despite Reynolds' miscue in the eighth the defense was on-point. Also, the Orioles looked good tonight the Orioles debuted their new orange alternate jerseys that they will wear every Saturday game. I love the orange jerseys, they are bright, fresh and distinctive. Hopefully those are three adjectives we can use to describe the Orioles for the rest of the year.

The Orioles have gotten off to good starts in the past, just last year they rattled off six wins in their first seven games before falling off into the cellar of the AL East. But taking a closer look, the O's were hanging right around .500 until June and July when the wheels came completely off the proverbial cart. To me that speaks to a lack of depth in the rotation, bench and bullpen. With the additions of Paulino, Wilson Betemit, Ayala and Ryan Flaherty the O's hoped to have a deeper team that looks to mitigate that usual midseason slide.

It is still very very early and the Orioles have been playing a Twins team that does not look to be very strong at all this year but let's enjoy it for what it is. Starting the season a convincing 2-0 is always better than 0-2. Tomorrow the Orioles will look to sweep the Twins as Jason Hammel will make his Orioles debut hoping to build on a strong spring against Twins spot-starter Anthony Swarzak, replacing rookie Liam Hendriks who has come down with a case of food poisoning. Looking ahead the Orioles will welcome the ever dreadful New York Yankees into Camden Yards for a three-game set starting Monday to wrap up the first homestand of the 2012 campaign.

Other observations

-Orioles starters have pitched 14+innings of scoreless (earned) ball in the first two games of the season. We can write that off to a weak Twins team, but as they say you should win the games you should win and this is just what you want to see from your starters this early. I don't think that anyone could have asked for anything more from Hunter and Arrieta over the last two days.

-Markakis is healthy, I don't think anyone can argue that and that bodes very well for the future.

-Wieters has a .429 OBP so far this season and his first homer of the year was a no-doubter.

-It was really great to see such a big crowd at the game tonight. Typically the second game of the season sees a gigantic drop-off from opening day. For example, last year the home opener brought in over 46 thousand fans, game two brought in only 12 thousand so seeing over 31 thousand at the ballpark was a fantastic sight and the energy from opening day truly carried over. Sunday looks to be another well-attended game as Easter Break winds down.

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Opening Day has come and gone and yet again it was amazing.

It never ceases to amaze me the sheer amount of humanity that descends upon Baltimore on opening day. Every bar, every hotdog cart, every street corner is simply overflowing with people. The various critics of the organization and team always state that no one wants to talk about or really care about the Orioles anymore, yet Opening Day gives us a glimpse of what might be.

Obviously tonight's game against the Twins will not be as well attended as opening day was and not every game would be like that even in a good year but the point remains. After spending a day in the writhing sea of humanity that was downtown Baltimore yesterday you realize that this town wants to love the Orioles again and anyone who denies that is completely lost to their own curmudgeony ideology.

Random Thoughts about the day:

-The new hats make the Orioles look as if they have an entire new uniform, and they are great.

-It is really great to see Brady Anderson in an Orioles' uniform again.

-The new rooftop deck looks amazing, the food service was greatly improved over last year's opener - Natty Boh Brats all the way.

-I question the fence in the flag court. How long before we have a fan interference call out there? If you haven't seen it you are very close to the action in real life.

-The minor touches and aesthetic changes in and around the ballpark are perfect. The powers that be have taken great care to update the look of the park without making any real glaring changes. You look at some of these things and you have to remind yourself that they weren't always there.

-I really hope that the rooftop deck remains a general admission area. The issue is that it does have a seating capacity, of about 300 people according to the Baltimore Sun, and there is no way to really regulate that without 1) a bouncer or 2) selling tickets. So get out now and enjoy the great free view while you can. I can imagine the team keeping it open on non-prime games but selling tickets on prime-nights.

-I am too old for Federal Hill. Not on Opening Day. Nope, just not my scene anymore. I'm six years out of college and married brah, I don't care what frat you are pledging.

-Jake Arrieta looked great. he kept the Twins guessing all day and only had one hit go out of the infield.

-It is so good to see Nick Markakis go opposite field on opening day. It was a blast too, with that certain "no-doubt-about-it" trajectory right off the bat. You will not erase questions in one day but Nick's big game yesterday did a lot to quite some rumblings about his future.

-Eric Lindstrom had trouble finding the plate but was still effective, I still like the pick-up. Meanwhile, Troy Patton was atrocious and made the game way too close. it was a decent idea putting Patton in there to get some work in, he needs to find his stride at this level somehow if he is going to a legitimate member of this team. he was clearly on a short leash yesterday, it got shorter after that blast from Willingham.

-Speaking of Josh Willingham, I thought the throw to get Markakis at the plate yesterday was bigger than his monstrous homer in the ninth. I didn't think there was anyway he would get Markakis on a throw after catching the foul ball. But the second I verbally questioned him from the stands he uncorked a one-hop throw to nab Markakis and short-circuit a strong inning for the Orioles' bats.

Tonight Tommy Hunter will go up against Francicso Liriano as the Orioles try to take the opening series for the second year in a row. Buck Showalter is playing some percentages here starting Ronny Paulino as tonight's DH (Paulino has a .378 OBA against lefties) and Nick Johnson will be making his debut at first for the Birds. The Orioles have fared well against Liriano over the last couple of years as he has tried to regain the promise of his breakthrough season before he was sidetracked by injuries and ineffectiveness.

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What an Opening Day.

The experience - in and out of Camden Yards - would be nothing short of amazing if the Orioles could ever put a winner together. Based on what I saw on Opening Day, people do care about baseball in Baltimore -- it's just that the franchise needs to give people a reason to do so.

Case in point: During the pre-game ceremonies, closer/reliever Kevin Gregg got booed without mercy. It kind of bothered me a bit, as I do not boo anyone on teams I root for; however, sports is a what-have-you-done-for-me lately business, and fans do have a voice in the matter.

Plus, this little kid who ran out at the closing of the pre-game intros for both teams left an impression on me. He knew it was once-in-a-lifetime moment and took full advantage of it, as he sprinted down the orange carpet and thenraced by ALL the players, slapping their hands. A very, very cool moment on a very memorable day to kick off the season in Baltimore.

Outside of the park before the game...

This was the scene outside Camden Yards on Opening Day. I took these while I was walking down Russell Street, and it was amazing the sea of people who were out celebrating or hanging out before the game itself. There were crowds of people EVERYWHERE the eye could see near the vicinity of the stadium.

The scene inside at Eutaw Street during the game.

Inside of Dempsey's.

I tried to get on the roof deck during a break in the game while walking around. It didn't happen. There was an usher guarding the stairwell to keep occupancy down, and the line to get up there was at least hundred feet long.

The deck is quite a nice touch to the park, and if you get a chance, try hanging out there for a few innings or so. I would imagine at some point, however, that the Orioles may sell the seats near the field seperately if the demand is very high. When I saw it on Wednesday, the deck really, really reminded me of the Green Monster area - where the seats are - up at Fenway Park.

The view of the park from way above center field is stunning.

Walked around the concourse in the lower deck.

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Tonight, the Baltimore Orioles play their second game of the season as they face the Minnesota Twins at 7:05 p.m.

This is the second contest in a three-game set. Right-hander Tommy Hunter squares off against southpaw Francisco Liriano on the mound.

Hunter, who came into this season slimmer and more fit is looking to establish himself as the number two starter. Much like with the other pitchers on the staff, he does have some questions about him; however, he has had some success in the majors with the Rangers and let's hope he can tap into it.

I feel confident about tonight’s game. Yes, the pitching may be questionable for Baltimore, and Minnesota’s Liriano can be either very or good bad; however, after what I saw from the Orioles on Friday, perhaps – with a sliver of hope – things may not be as bad as some have predicted.

Well, Dylan Bundy – the team’s first round draft pick in 2011 – made his professional debut, and the impression he left only added to the hype according to MASN’s Steve Melewski. Bundy struck out six of the nine batters that he faced. Amazing.

In other thoughts, I was watching the Los Angeles Angels take on the Kansas City Royals on TV last night, and it was strange – literally – to see Albert Pujols in another uniform aside from the St. Louis Cardinals. That will take a little while to get acclimated with. Honestly, I thought he was going to be a Cardinal for life; however, money does seem to supercede everything.

Finally, Jamie Moyer – who is 49 years old – is attempting tonight to become the oldest man to win a ball game.

He’s a former Oriole that I remember vaguely watching in the 1990’s, and back then one would have never thought the he would be pitching in the majors for a fourth decade. Now, he is with the Colorado Rockies after missing last season due to Tommy John surgery.

He’s got one fewer win than Oriole legend Jim Palmer, who has 268. That’s just astounding to think about, as Moyer has lasted so long not because of natural ability, but guts, guile and knowing how to pitch.

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It was a glorious Opening Day for the Baltimore Orioles as they defeated the Minnesota Twins, 4-2, on a sunny Friday afternoon at a sold-out Camden Yards.

As we all know, twenty years ago, Camden Yards opened to the public and not only has become an indelible part of the city, but also helped transform the landscape of baseball.

The pre-game ceremony by the Orioles’ production team was well done and fans were excited to see the team back in town.

In addition, pitcher Rick Suttcliffe and his battery-mate from 1992, catcher Chris Hoiles re-united to open up the baseball season with the first pitch.

Pitcher Jake Arrieta started off 2012 on an impressive note, throwing seven shutout innings. He struck out four and walked two. For much of the day, Arrieta stymied Minnesota at the plate.

Arrieta was handed the ball on Opening Day and he delivered like a tenured veteran. The feat was even more astounding, considering Arrieta had surgery in 2011 and had some ups and downs in Spring Training.

That being said, let’s hope Arrieta can look at this performance and find a way to maintain some consistency.

Nick Markakis provided much of the offense for Baltimore as he drove in three runs. He hit a two-run, opposite field homer in the first, and added a triple in the sixth inning. Overall, he was 2-for-3 on the day.

Matt Lindstrom pitched a scoreless eighth inning in relief; meanwhile, left-hander Troy Patton made things interesting as he gave up two runs in the ninth inning off a Josh Willingham 2-run homer before reliever Jim Johnson came in for the save.

All in all, it was a good day for the Orioles and all of us fans. Many have predicted the team to finish last; however, let’s hope the team can bottle up this performance and use it as momentum to start the season strong.

Finally, before today's game, both Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters recieved their Rawlings Gold Glove awards for the 2011 season.

This idiot - who resembled Daniel Bryan from the WWE - decided to trespass on the field during the game; however, Baltimore's finest got him under control.

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