Brian Matusz

These Orioles, under manager Buck Showalter, pride themselves on keeping the long baseball season in perspective, not worrying about trends and streaks and snowballing defeats. So when the club is forced to absorb what was arguably its biggest gut-punch of the season on Saturday - a 10-6 loss to the division rival Tampa Bay Rays in which All-Star closer Jim Johnson blew his second consecutive save opportunity in the ninth inning and the team's season-worst losing streak stretched to four games - Showalter and his players aren't pointing fingers of blame.

These Orioles, under manager Buck Showalter, pride themselves on keeping the long baseball season in perspective, not worrying about trends and streaks and snowballing defeats. So when the club is forced to absorb what was arguably its biggest gut-punch of the season on Saturday - a 10-6 loss to the division rival Tampa Bay Rays in which All-Star closer Jim Johnson blew his second consecutive save opportunity in the ninth inning and the team's season-worst losing streak stretched to four games - Showalter and his players aren't pointing fingers of blame.

SARASOTA, Fla. - Orioles manager Buck Showalter spent much of Friday afternoon telling players who will and won't be making the club's 25-man roster - leaving him with only one decision remaining. Steve Pearce and Conor Jackson are still battling to be the final first base-outfield reserve on the club's 2013 roster. Otherwise, things are set for Tuesday's season opener, with right-hander Jake Arrieta winning the final rotation spot, lefties Brian Matusz and T.J. McFarland added to an eight-man bullpen and infielder-outfielder Ryan Flaherty capturing a utility role.

Wei-Yin Chen probably would have completed seven innings on Tuesday night if it hadn't been for a 48-minute rain delay that ended his night with one out (and one on) in the seventh. He pitched well enough to get a win - nine  hits, no walks two earned runs in 6 1/3 innings - but Alex Gordon's two-run homer against Brian Matusz tied the game at 3-3 in the seventh. Perhaps more important than the personal 'W' is that Chen (3.40 ERA) bounced back from a rough outing on Wednesday in Seattle in which he gave up five earned runs in four innings.

Brian Matusz is making a case to come back to Baltimore.  The lefty was named the International League Pitcher of the Week today after his first start in Triple-A Norfolk on Friday. Tides outfielder Nate McLouth took the honors for Batter of the Week. Matusz tossed a complete game shutout in a 4-0 win over Charlotte, surrendering four hits and a walk while striking out four. Eighty-one of his 114 pitches were strikes, and he outdueled rehabbing Phillip Humber, who threw a perfect game for the Chicago White Sox earlier this season.

Pitching in the minor leagues and still struggling to get hitters out, Brian Matusz, who was thought to be the Orioles' best starting pitcher entering the 2011 season, admitted to Jeff Zrebiec of The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday that he wasn't mentally prepared at the start of spring training. Down in Sarasota, the Orioles pitching brain trust of Mark Connor and Rick Adair -- Connor is no longer with the team -- tinkered with Matusz's mechanics, and the pitcher said it negatively affected his confidence.

Now that Orioles fans have had some time to digest left-hander Brian Matusz's 2012 debut, let's really take a look at the pluses and minuses of his outing against the Yankees, a 6-2 loss, on Monday night. Orioles manager Buck Showalter and catcher Matt Wieters both said emphatically that Matusz is leaps and bounds better than what he was last year. Matusz's velocity was there. He was mostly in the 91-92 range, the same as we saw during the spring, and nowhere near the mid-80s he dropped into last year. Even after the 90-pitch mark, he was still throwing 91.  So for now, let's put that to rest.

Orioles left-hander Brian Matusz said he's put last season's struggles behind him and feels he's become a better pitcher having gone through them. Matusz looked impressive in his first public bullpen session Wednesday. Catcher Matt Wieters said it looked like Matusz's mechanics had improved and he regained his 2010 form. “I felt good,” Matusz said. “I felt nice and loose. The ball was coming out of my hand with no effort and it was coming out nice. I feel like the stuff is there.

After an abysmal start on Sunday in which he retired just three of the 13 batters he faced, Orioles pitcher Brian Matusz insisted that he was “100 percent healthy.” But he looked so out of sync in the 9-6 loss, Rays manager Joe Maddon said Matusz didn't look quite right. “He's not throwing as hard as he used to,” he said. Meanwhile, in the Baltimore clubhouse, Orioles manager Buck Showalter wasn’t sugarcoating Matusz’s performance, saying that he had hoped to see more improvement from his young starter upon returning from the disabled list.

One of the most impressive things about the Orioles' turnaround under Buck Showalteris Showalter's ability to experiment in-season. And his knack on pulling the plug when it doesn't work and sticking with it when it looks like it might. How many times have we heard over the years that this guy might work out at that spot, but that's more of a spring training thing? The answer is plenty. Yet Showalter isn't afraid to try things and see if they stick - even if it means losing a game or two. Because the result could also win you a game or two. There have been some duds, like the revolving door of infielders in the outfield earlier this year.

Each Wednesday, blogger Matt Vensel will highlight five statistics that really mean something for the Orioles. 29:1 -- Kevin Gausman's strikeout-to-walk ratio in his first five starts at Double-A Bowie. Kevin Gausman, the team's first-round draft pick in 2012, is settling in at Double-A Bowie. After consecutive starts in which he allowed just one earned run in each, the 22-year-old is 1-3 with a 3.77 ERA in five starts during his first full professional season. But most impressively, he has walked just one batter while striking out 29, including eight Sunday, his most recent start.

The Orioles won three of four in Oakland, and most of the correspondence I received from fans Sunday was about how they blew the series finale. That's a good sign, I guess. You aren't content with any loss. Been a long time since that was the case (OK, so maybe in the past you weren't content, just resigned.) Anyway, as I flew to Seattle from Oakland after Sunday's game, a couple things stuck with me based on your tweets and emails. One: Many of you are unhappy with reliever Pedro Strop.

Throwing a game away - literally - doesn't usually sit well with teams, especially when they are attempting to establish themselves as consistent winners. So when the Orioles dropped a 9-8, 10-inning loss to the Oakland A's Sunday afternoon on consecutive poor throws following sacrifice bunt attempts, it would be understandable if the players were chewing nails in post-game interviews. For the most part, that was not the case - not after the Orioles (15-10) took three of four in their personal pain chamber, the Oakland Coliseum, to kick off a brutal, three-city, 11-game West Coast swing.

Orioles reliever Pedro Strop said he's never lost his confidence even through some rough outings in the first three weeks of the season. And the Orioles' confidence in Strop to preserve a one-run lead in the eighth inning of their 4-3 win over the Blue Jays on Tuesday night was rewarded in turn. “That was huge because that was the game right there,” Strop said afterward. “I've been struggling lately and that's good to have some confidence back, and I feel even better because I gave my team the opportunity to win. Who knows?

You've seen it before. Way too many times before. Orioles right-hander Jake Arrieta has an outing in which he looks great in spurts and terrible in spurts. It happened again Sunday in a 7-4 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He had three perfect innings. The other two were disasters. And he ended up coughing up the lead in the fifth. Arrieta shouldered the blame. And that's not a problem. Arrieta's not afraid to point the finger at himself. He's also not afraid to work hard, to try and turn things around.

In the sixth inning of the Orioles' 3-2 win over the Boston Red Sox on Thursday, Orioles manager Buck Showalter turned to bench coach John Russell in the visiting dugout of Fenway Park and made a prognostication in the middle of a tied game. Left-hander Brian Matusz had just overcome a 3-0 count to Jarrod Saltalamacchia to strike him out on a full-count pitch. Matusz came into the game with two on and one out in the sixth, relieving starter Chris Tillman after he threw 96 pitches.

Left-hander Brian Matusz returned to the Orioles clubhouse Friday afternoon, but to fill a much different role than the one he had when he left. With left-handed reliever Troy Patton on the disabled list nursing a sprained right ankle, the Orioles called up Matusz, who was converted to a relief role 10 days ago, to be the sole lefty in the O's bullpen. "I'm confident in his abilities, I don't know if it's going to play up here," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said.

As the Orioles packed up for their final road trip of a surprising first half Sunday evening, left-hander Brian Matusz was left behind, the obvious casualty of a club - and a starting rotation - that is seemingly wilting as the summer progresses. Matusz, in a funk for his past five starts, secured a trip to Triple-A Norfolk by failing to get through the fifth in a 6-2 loss to the Cleveland Indians - the Orioles' ninth defeat in their past 12 games. “In my last five, six outings [I]

BOSTON - Over the past two nights, the Orioles recaptured those late-inning heroics of last season at Fenway Park. One night after a five-run ninth-inning rally led them to victory, the Orioles came from behind against the Red Sox again Thursday, winning 3-2 in a game that played out much like so many of last year's close wins. This victory sealed the Orioles' fifth straight series win at Fenway Park, a streak that dates back to July 7-10, 2011. “It means a lot,” said Orioles center fielder Adam Jones, who drove in two runs, including the game-winner in the seventh.

BOSTON -- The Orioles traded veteran reliever Luis Ayala to the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday, receiving minor league left-handed reliever Chris Jones in return. But the move was less about unloading Ayala than it was allowing the Orioles the opportunity to keep Rule 5 pick T.J. McFarland while moving to a seven-man bullpen. It lets the team go to back a four-man bench after playing short-handed since Saturday. The Orioles purchased the contract of outfielder Chris Dickerson from Triple-A Norfolk, and he replaced Ayala on the 40-man and 25-man rosters.