Baltimore Orioles: Oh My, O’Day, Oh No!

Jul 24, 2015; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Chris Tillman (30) looks on in the dugout against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Baltimore Orioles desperately need to do some things they have not been doing lately and get a win that will start a new winning trend. But in the 3-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night, the new thing done was not in a category that was helpful.

Prior to this game, the Orioles were a perfect 39-0 when leading after seven innings. And after seven frames on Friday night, the O’s were winning 1-0.

Chris Tillman was pitching a beautiful game, having only given up two hits, with two walks and a hit batsman. He had only thrown 85 pitches.

Leading off the bottom of the eighth for the Rays was Kevin Kiermaier, and Tillman walked him on a full count, putting the tying run on first base. And out comes Buck Showalter, calling for Darren O’Day to enter the game.

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Showalter will not let a starting pitcher who has had a good outing and is in the lead late in the game face a situation where he might become the losing pitcher. In this case, there was no way Buck was going to allow Tillman to put another runner on base and become the loser. I will bet anything that Showalter would have permitted Tillman to face another batter if the score was 2-0 instead of 1-0.

Of course, there is every reason to have confidence in Darren O’Day, who has truly been great over the past month or so. But after getting an out, O’Day simply did not hold Kiermaier closely enough on first base, and the Rays’ center fielder stole second base. There he was for John Jaso to drive the first pitch he saw from O’Day into center for an RBI single. The inning continued and featured a fluke hit by Evan Longoria on a broken bat, and before it was over, the score was 3-1 … the final.

You can say that it was again some bad luck that hurt the Orioles in that eighth inning. But, when a team only scores one run, you can’t blame the pitching for not shutting out the opponent and thereby at fault for blowing the game. O’Day can’t be perfect every night, and he’s been very, very good in most games.

Again, the Orioles did not get many baserunners in scoring position – only a total of seven. And the O’s only managed one hit in those situations, making them 3-for-21 during this four-game losing streak.

In the category of good news, it certainly appears that Chris Tillman has found his former good stuff and old form. That is great. Now we need to hope that Jimenez has not regressed at the same rate. And we need to hope that Kevin Gausman settles in. And we need to hope that Miguel Gonzalez regains his historic consistency. And we need to hope that Wei-Yin Chen continues his very good season by keeping the fly balls on the fielders’ side of the walls. And we need to hope that the offense can crawl out of the grave – which may be the most difficult hope of them all. Yes, there is a lot of hoping going on these days.

Other good news is that the Yankees and Michael Pineda got trashed by the Twins, 10-1. For there to be any hopes for this 2015 season, the Orioles are going to need this story to repeat often. And again, they have to score more than a mere eight runs in four game stretches.

Next: Orioles need a winning streak to start

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