Baltimore Orioles: Inconsistent pitching leads to unexpected roster moves

The Baltimore Orioles pitching staff has struggled only a few times this season, yet, visiting New York has been the roughest of the rough.

Arguably, the Baltimore Orioles bullpen had been pitching quite nicely prior to entering this series in New York. As a whole, the bullpen had pitched 80 innings and had allowed 24 earned runs.

For those of you reading and keeping score, that’s an ERA of 2.70.

On Friday night, Kevin Gausman was able to make it through six innings, and he exited in the seventh with the Orioles up, 11-to-4.

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Surely, you would imagine a bullpen allowing less than three runs a game could hold a seven run lead.

However, Vidal Nuño allowed three runs, and Brad Brach blew a save opportunity in the ninth. Brach allowed three runs, allowing the Yankees to tie it, and in the bottom of the tenth, Jason Aquino allowed three.

The Yankees had come from behind, after trailing 9-to-1 as late as the sixth inning, to defeat the Baltimore Orioles 14-11.

A day game, after a stunning loss, and the Orioles were ready to put the past behind them.

Having been swept up in the hoopla that is a New York Yankees walk-off victory, the Orioles knew they had to move forward. There’s nothing like an extra-inning defeat, followed by new baseball a few hours later.

Baseball is a game played 162 times over the course of six months. Teams will win some and will lose some. A team will experience shutout losses and will relish in blowout victories.

For the Orioles, they lost another one yesterday, by a wider margin than the night before.

Ubaldo Jiménez struggled, yet again, taking the loss in his fifth start.

Unfortunately, Jiménez didn’t make it through the fourth inning, and by that time, had already thrown 68 pitches, 38 for strikes. He also allowed two home runs to Brett Gardner (in back-to-back innings), and gave up six runs altogether.

With an ERA now at 7.43 on the season, that puts him and Gausman (7.50) fourth and third worst, respectively, in the majors. They sit behind Minnesota’s Kyle Gibson (8.06 in five starts), and Boston’s Steven Wright (8.25 in five starts).

Jiménez’ short outing yesterday caused more strain to be placed on an already stretched bullpen.

In addition to Nuńo and Aquino, Donnie Hart made his first appearance since Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Rays.

After five hits, five runs, three walks and eight strikeouts from the bullpen, the Orioles found themselves losers of their first series of the season.

Not to mention, needing some rested arms for today’s game.

Shoddy pitching leads to the activation of the Norfolk Express.

Manager Buck Showalter announced after yesterday’s game that the Orioles would be in need of a fresh arm.

"“Definitely tomorrow. We knew it was going to be a challenge today, especially if we got a short start, but Vidal and Jayson didn’t pitch very much last night and then Donnie (Hart) could use an inning, but that was about all I had today.”"

That’s what Buck Showalter told MASN reporter Roch Kubatko in regards to a new arm needed from the minors.

So it had been said, and so it had been done.

Aquino (1-1, 7.11) and Nuńo (0-0, 6.00) have been optioned to AAA Norfolk. It will be ten days before we see either of those pitchers again for the Orioles.

According to Roster Resource, both men are out of options.

According to Norfolk Tides reporter, David Hall, the corresponding roster move will see LHP Richard Bleier and RHP Logan Verrett joining the Orioles in New York.

Bleier, 30, was activated from the Tides’ 7-day disabled list on Wednesday, after straining his right hamstring. In five appearances this month, Bleier has pitched nine innings and has allowed just one run.

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Verrett, 26, has appeared in seven games for the Tides. In those appearances, he’s pitched 13.1 innings and has allowed nine runs.