It was not a good night for the Orioles as they lost again, for the eighth consecutive time.
They opened up their ten-game home stand this week and lost to the Minnesota Twins, 3-0.
It’s been bad for the past week-and-a-half. They are now 6-9 on the season.
The starting pitching was decent; however, reliever Kevin Gregg was terrible and the Baltimore offense didn’t get going until the seventh inning.
Chris Tillman – who took the loss – pitched all right, going 6 2/3 innings, striking out five, giving up six hits and walking none. He got into some trouble in the second inning where he gave up two runs, but settled down.
Good to have seen him bounce back after his horrific outing in the Bronx last week.
I caught the first six innings in person at Camden Yards since I was in town for work, but left during the seventh to head back south home.
The Orioles finally got on the board in the seventh thanks to back-to-back homers by Adam Jones and Matt Wieters.
With the Twins leading 3-2, team closer Kevin Gregg came into the game and it was not pretty. What was a close game became a seemingly insurmountable lead (by the way the Oriole offense is going) as Gregg simply was not effective. In his one inning of work in the ninth, he gave up two runs and walked two.
It was ugly.
I saw the final few frames on MASN and the reception that Gregg got after he got off the mound was one I heard way too many times at Camden Yards.
The sounds of boos. Frustration of not only a losing streak, but years upon years of losing. Anger as to why the Orioles can’t get over the losing and how a closer could just simply have a bad outing again and again (especially in a non-save situation).
Really, it seems that the more things have changed, the more they have stayed the same. The new season was supposed to bring promise — and it did for a week.
But we have 140+ games to go.
Luke Scott homered in the bottom of the ninth as a pinch hitter, but it didn’t make much of a difference.
In a way, Gregg’s outing negated Scott’s homer because he were effective, the game would have been tied and the circumstances would have been much different.
The Baltimore offense is still struggling and they made Francisco Liriano look pretty good – despite giving up five walks – until they broke out in the seventh.
They can’t be this bad. There are too many veterans on this team right now with track records for things to be like this. I think they have just ran into a rough patch and have to play out of it.
I mean, Buck Showalter has done a great job with the team so far, but he can’t hit, pitch, field or otherwise. He’s just got to keep his team motivated.
