Baltimore Orioles: Buck Showalter to Blame for Last Night’s Loss
By Joe Serpico
Baltimore Orioles skipper Buck Showalter made some questionable decisions in last night’s loss to the Washington Nationals.
The Baltimore Orioles have one of the best managers in baseball in Buck Showalter. Since Peter Angelos named him the new man in charge, all this team has done is win ball games.
Much of that is because he has put together the right team and manages it to perfection. There are not many nights where you wonder what the hell he is doing.
Last night was one of those rare nights.
There was plenty of decisions that made you scratch your head. It started with the decision to start Steve Pearce over Hyun-Soo Kim against a right hander. Kim has been one of the O’s best hitters this season, but Showalter decided to put Pearce in the lineup to get him at bats. The result? Pearce went 0-4 with a strikeout.
Pearce has been a major disappointment since coming back to the Orioles in a deadline deal. He’s batting .172. with eight strikeouts in 29 at bats. We know Pearce is one of Buck’s guys, but he is a liability at this point.
Ubaldo Jimenez pitched a gem last night. You read that right. Ubaldo Jimenez was great. He pitched six innings of one-run baseball and gave his team a chance to win. That is something we haven’t said much about a Jimenez start.
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Showalter made the right move to get him out of the game after six. It’s who he put in to replace him that has us wondering what he was thinking.
It was a 1-0 game with Brad Brach warming in the pen to keep the game close. Yet, for some unknown reason, Logan Ondrusek entered the game instead. He worked a scoreless seventh which was a shocker given how ineffective he has been. So Buck left him out there for another inning and it was a three-run inning that put the game out of reach.
The game was still in reach and he left a pitcher that has been downright awful work another inning instead of putting his All Star in the game. Why? It’s a decision most Orioles fans did not understand.
Some say it did not matter because the Orioles never scored a run. However, there is a difference between trying to score one run instead of four. They could have approached the ninth with a completely different strategy.
These are the kinds of mistakes the Orioles cannot make at this point of the season. The pitching is already a mess with Chris Tillman and Darren O’Day on the disabled list. Kim got one at bat last night and it resulted in a double. Granted it was not against Max Scherzer, who was fantastic last night, but their closer Mark Melancon is no slouch.
The guys on the field are supposed to win the game. Buck did not strike out ten times, but he did not put his team in a position to win either. When Jimenez is going to pitch his best game of the season, you have to do everything possible to win that game. It is unlikely we get another performance like that from him.
Even with the loss, the Orioles won the series against the Nationals. The teams above them in the American League East also lost last night so they lost no ground there. They now head to the Bronx for a three-game set against the New York Yankees and have nine more divisional games after that.
Next: Prepare for Rollercoaster Ride the Rest of the Way
Now is not the time to be throwing opportunities away. It is not often that Buck is to blame for a loss, but this one is on him.