Baltimore Orioles Still All About the Pitching

The Baltimore Orioles are back in first place, after beating the Boston Red Sox Thursday evening behind a masterful start by Tyler Wilson.

Wilson clearly outpitched former Orioles’ farmhand Eduardo Rodriguez, who was largely done in by Adam Jones.

Which brings us to where we are with the Baltimore Orioles at this point. It is all about the starting pitching.

This has been my running theme since 2012. The offense is going to be good enough for this team to be a really good team, especially in 2016. But, how good will the pitching be?

The Orioles have had two consistent starters so far. Chris Tillman has been consistently very good, almost ace-like. Ubaldo Jimenez has been consistently awful.

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Then there are the others, like Tyler Wilson, Yovani Gallardo, Mike Wright, Kevin Gausman. Gausman has been pretty good. However, he continues to struggle with big innings and has got next to no run support.

Gallardo struggled before going on the disabled list, and the team hopes the Gallardo they see this weekend is more like what they were expecting when they signed the right-hander.

Wright has also largely struggled, and was demoted before Darren O’Day got hurt. Then, Wright got his ‘reprieve’ and went seven scoreless innings against the Kansas City Royals.

But, in his next start, he got rocked by the Toronto Blue Jays. That isn’t shocking, as the Jays’ offense is really hitting the ball well. Oh, and they come to town for a three-game set against the Orioles tonight, with game 1 seeing Wright vs. Aaron Sanchez.

As for Tyler Wilson. Wilson went EIGHT scoreless against the best statistical offense in the American League on Thursday night. Sure, he got a lot of help from his defense. He got early run support. But, it still takes a very good outing for a pitcher to go eight scoreless innings against a team like the Red Sox.

Wilson did that.

The Baltimore Orioles have a number one pitcher in Tillman. After that, Gausman is their second-best pitcher, but still needs to pitch better. Will Gallardo be number 3? Or will either Wright or Wilson consistently put it together?

The Baltimore Orioles are a playoff team, at least so far. But whether they are a World Series team or a Wild-Card team will depend on what they can get from their starting pitching.

Next: Former Teammates Battle In Boston

Games like Thursday make it look like this team can do some really special things. It is just a matter of how many times the O’s get these kind of pitching performances.

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