If the Baltimore Orioles could get the kind of start that they got last night from Jeremy Guthrie on a consistent basis, they’d be in business. Guthrie pitched eight innings, gave up five hits, no earned runs, struck out a season-high nine batters…and lost. I said he gave up no earned runs; I didn’t say anything about unearned runs. With the Birds leading 2-0 Guthrie got the first two outs of the eighth inning before Ichiro reached on an error which was charged to Guthrie. Gary Thorne and Jim Palmer appeared to disagree that the error should be charged to Guthrie on MASN, however I felt it was the right call because the ball was in his glove as he covered first and he couldn’t hold on. Unfortunately that one little miscue derailed what might have been Guthrie’s best performance since Opening Day as Brendan Ryan followed with a single, and Justin Smoak sent a deep homer to right field to give Seattle the lead at 3-2, which ended up being the final score.
The underlying storyline in this game was the Erik Bedard/Adam Jones trade of 2007. Bedard pitched a pretty solid game against his old team, going 6.1 innings and surrendering two runs over six hits, seven strikeouts and two walks. However the O’s did get to him at the end, with Robert Andino scoring on a fielder’s choice double-play, and Matt Wieters sending one out to right field. (Ironically, Jones’ base hit set up that first run by Andino.) Some of the online chatter I was reading during the game last night/early this morning seemed to indicate that Bedard was getting the best of his former team. I sincerely hope that nobody truly believes that. I suppose that it’s easy enough to spin in that manner, because Bedard did put his team in a position to win, which they ultimately did. However in a staring contest between him and Guthrie, he blinked first.
It’s certainly easy enough to say that Guthrie’s error and subsequent hanging changeup lost the game. However the small things in games are often part of the fine line between winning and losing. With one down in the fifth Luke Scott hit a solid double down the left field line. On Nolan Reimold’s single which followed, Scott didn’t get a good read on the ball, and held up between second and third. That in itself was probably the right move because it wasn’t clear to Scott that the ball was going to fall in for a hit, and he didn’t want to get doubled-up. What was not the right move was trying to advance to third after he saw the ball was going to fall in. Scott was easily thrown out at third base, which left the O’s with a runner on first and two outs as opposed to one out and runners at the corners. When you’re mirred in a losing streak like this those are the kind of “blonde moments” that seem to happen. The Orioles have now lost five straight, and can only hope to salvage one win on this roadtrip in this afternoon’s getaway day matinee in Seattle.
The good news for the Orioles (which not even a five-game losing streak could spoil) is that today’s game is the return of Brian Matusz, who’ll make his first start of 2011 against the Mariners today. Matusz, and the injury to his intercostal muscle, seemed to foreshadow the Birds’ injury problems from the beginning. This afternoon he’ll head to the mound in hopes of being a much-needed stopper for the Orioles, who are in the midst of a five-game losing streak. On a positive note from last night, Guthrie pitched the whole game. We’ve talked so much about the Oriole bullpen being so taxed after some long outings and extra-inning games, so at the very least it wasn’t necessary to use the pen last night. Koji Uehara briefly got loose in the eighth inning, however Guthrie finished it off and it wasn’t necessary to go to the pen. On top of that, the O’s have had a deeper bullpen in general the past few days because they brought up Pedro Viola and Chris Jakubauskas from the minors to take Tillman and Bergesen’s roster spots. (Presumably one of those two will be sent back down prior to today’s game to make room for Matusz on the roster.) That rested bullpen might prove valuable for the Birds this afternoon given that Matusz hasn’t made any starts at this level as of yet in 2011. With a day off tomorrow, Buck Showalter will have the option of using anyone in the bullpen at will.
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