Baltimore Orioles: Poor seasons from Gausman, Tillman means last place

The Baltimore Orioles are running out of pitching options before the 2017 MLB All-Star break which is a recipe for an unfortunate season.

The Baltimore Orioles pitching staff has hit rock bottom after the New York Yankees scored a combined 38 runs off the Orioles pitchers during the three-game weekend series sweep.

The 2017 Baltimore Orioles currently sit in fourth place in the AL East division, one game above .500 and a whopping 6.5 games back of the first-place New York Yankees. The team as been supplemented by a steady flow of pitching woes both in the starting rotation and bullpen.

Following the Oriole being swept by the Yankees over the weekend, FiveThirtyEight.com gives the Orioles a 15 percent chance of reaching the playoffs. At the nucleus of the Orioles pitching frustrations has been the disturbing performances of starting pitchers Kevin Gausman and Chris Tillman.

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The days when Tillman was appointed ace of the Orioles starting rotation is clearly over. Whether his pitiful performance this season is injury-related or not, Tillman now owns a horrendous 8.01 ERA after allowing three home runs and nine earned runs in 1.1 innings pitched against the New York Yankees Saturday in front of a national TV audience.

Tillman has allowed at least three earned runs in his last six starts and has picked up a lose in four straight starts. Batters are hitting .336 off Tillman in 2017, which is his career-worst by a large margin. A two-seam fastball is a pitch that Tillman’s rarely used throughout his career, but this season, Tillman has installed the two-seamer in his arsenal which has resulted in almost no success.

According to FanGraphs, Tillman has thrown his two-seam fastball 78 times this season which has produced a .478 opponent batting average, the highest average out of his pitching arsenal. The last time Tillman used his two-seam fastball was briefly in 2014, throwing the pitch 17 times, holding all five batters hitless.

Tillman’s velocity has plummeted in each of his pitches from last year. His four-seam fastball averaged out at 92.9 miles per hour in 2016 to 90.73 miles per hour in 2017, per BrooksBaseball.com

Maybe even more concerning is the young right-handed pitcher Gausman, who now owns a 6.49 ERA in 2017 after tossing 93 innings with a 3.10 ERA post-All-Star break just a season ago. Gausman’s dreadful 2017 season may be due to the development of his slider, a pitch he has never thrown before in his career. The 26-year-old pitcher has thrown his slider 221 times, with an average velocity of 84.5 miles per hour.

Gausman’s curveball has suffered a major setback and almost non-existent as his curve has been applied just 21 times (1.6 percent) this season compared to 415 times (13.3 percent) in 2016. Ultimately it comes down to control for Gausman, who seems to have lost touch with his once dominant fastball. His four-seam fastball has garnered an eye-popping decrease in whiffs that dropped from a 9.06 percent rate last season to 6.59 percent this year. Furthermore, opposing batters are hitting .337 against Gausman’s fastball.

When you put the pitchers side-by-side, both have seen their opposing batting average skyrocket this season, well ahead of the MLB’s .249 batting average.

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Furthermore, the Orioles are without Zach Britton for another month and now Darren O’Day who revisits the DL. If the Orioles want any chance at making the playoffs this season, an acquisition of a proven starting pitcher is a must with the lack of reliable pitching in Triple-A Norfolk.

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