Baltimore Orioles: Great KC Pitching Stops Good O’s Hitting
Apr 24, 2014; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis celebrates with teammates after the game against Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
The Baltimore Orioles lost to the great pitching effort of Yordano Ventura, while also losing Chris Davis to an oblique strain, severity unknown.
The Kansas City Royals have every reason to be incredibly excited about 22-year-old Yordano Ventura. My goodness – talk about a pitcher who has it all! He can throw up to 100 mph while varying his speeds with balls moving and dropping in every direction. Impressive in the extreme! The youngster threw eight innings of seven-hit shut-out, walking two and striking out eight.
The boy (I’m old enough to call him that!) is especially impressive because he is 5-11, 180 pounds. His 103rd pitch of the evening was clocked at 99 mph! That is crazy! So there is no Orioles offense to discuss.
Ubaldo Jimenez did the same thing as Chris Tillman and Budd Norris over the previous two games – gave up early runs, but then shut down the opposition for multiple innings. However, unlike the past two evenings in Toronto, the Baltimore Orioles were unable to mount any sort of comeback whatsoever.
Jimenez allowed the Royals to string together some hits in the 1st inning to take a 2-0 lead. And though KC would put two more earned runs across the plate charged to Ubaldo’s account in the 7th inning, Jimenez pitched very well from the 2nd thru 6th frames. It is something to build upon.
Davis appeared to have strained his oblique on a swing and miss. The severity will likely be unknown until sometime Saturday. This injury hit the Baltimore Orioles sadly on a day when all the Manny Machado news was so good. The O’s third baseman played his first game for Frederick, going 3-for-4 with two doubles and a triple. I saw the local news from nearby Hagerstown television coverage, and the triple and first double were Derek Jeter-style inside-out swings that drove the ball into the right-field corner. Manny aggressively slid into the third on the triple. The final hit was a well-stroked ball.
The O’s will seek to come back to offensive production against an old friend in good-guy-extraordinaire Jeremy Guthrie. The former Baltimore Orioles starter is currently 2-1 with a 4.68 ERA over his first four outings of 2014.
His career record against his former teammates is a perfect 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA over 12 innings in two games. Other than Matt Wieters with a 4-for-5 record of hitting the familiar pitches he used to catch, none of the other Orioles have very good numbers against Guthrie…
AB |
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
BB
SO
BA
Delmon Young27
4
1
0
0
0
1
0
.148
Nelson Cruz19
4
1
0
0
4
2
2
.211
Chris Davis
16
1
0
0
1
1
1
6
.063
J.J. Hardy8
1
0
0
0
1
0
1
.125
Adam Jones5
0
0
0
0
0
1
2
.000
Nick Markakis5
2
0
0
0
0
1
0
.400
Matt Wieters
5
4
1
0
0
0
0
0
.800
Ryan Flaherty2
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
.500
Steve Lombardozzi3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
.000
The Baltimore Orioles will send Wei-Yin Chen out for his fifth start also. He has won his last three starts to have a 3-1 record on the season with a 4.91 ERA.
Chen has started four games against the Royals and is 0-1 with a 5.18 ERA over 24.1 innings of work. Both Billy Butler and Eric Hosmer have hit him well, as each has two homers.
AB |
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
BB
SO
BA
Billy Butler
12
7
2
1
2
4
0
1
.583
Alcides Escobar12
3
0
0
0
1
0
1
.250
Eric Hosmer
11
5
0
0
2
4
0
0
.455
Alex Gordon9
2
0
0
1
1
0
3
.222
Salvador Perez8
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
.000
Mike Moustakas6
2
1
0
0
1
0
0
.333
Omar Infante3
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
.333
Danny Valencia3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
.000