After the high of Thursday night, perhaps reality has smacked the Orioles in the face once again.
It seems that they have little margin for error, and on Friday night that point was illustrated.
At this point, are the Orioles what they are? They upended a weak-hitting Seattle team this week and now start a hellish seven days going through the meat-grinder of the American League East.
The Baltimore Orioles started off their five-game road trip with a loss to the American-League East leading Tampa Bays, 3-0.
They have lost four straight to the Rays now.
In a battle of Jeremys, Tampa Bay’s Hellickson defeated Baltimore’s Guthrie by throwing a complete game, dominating his opponents. He didn’t allow a hit after the fifth inning and rolled to the easy victory.
Jeremy Guthrie did also pitch a complete game, going eight innings and giving up three runs – all off of homers. Matt Joyce hit a two-run shot in the fifth and Johnny Damon added a solo homer in the eighth for the Rays.
Two mistakes on pitches did the Orioles in, plain and simple.
Guthrie was outstanding and looked a lot better than he has in the past few games; however, it was not even close to enough for Baltimore to pull out a win.
And yes, once again, the Orioles didn’t give Guthrie any run support. It’s crazy, but it seems to be par for the course for the pitcher. I can only imagine Guthrie must be frustrated.
The Orioles only mustered four hits on the night and left four on base. That was it.
So far, it looks like a retooled Baltimore squad has been very lackluster at the plate throughout much of the season. Right now, it looks like the additions, plus the mainstays of the team over the past few seasons aren’t doing much at all.
Brian Roberts is ice-cold, and so is Mark Reynolds with his umpteen strikeouts.
They were out-hit, out-pitched and out-played.
Oh well.
At least it looks like Brian Matusz is on the mend and inching closer to a return with the Orioles hopefully in the next week or two.
