Brian Matusz

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.

After right-hander Kevin Gausman allowed six hits and two runs in 5 1/3 innings Thursday night against the Boston Red Sox, he was optioned to Triple-A Norfolk. It had little to do with how he pitched. The Orioles needed another arm in the bullpen after Thursday's 13-inning, 5-4 win . They used six relievers - and three threw more than one inning. Gausman has options, and most of the relief corps doesn't (only Brian Matusz and Darren O'Day could be sent to the minors without passing through waivers)

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.

The Orioles wouldn't say it, but they're probably glad they won't see the Tampa Bay Rays again until mid-August. They were able to salvage one win in their trip to the Trop, but since taking two of three in Tampa Bay in the opening series of the season, the Rays have been tough on the Orioles. We're reminded very quickly why Tampa Bay was picked by many to win the American League East. Their ability to control games with their pitching might make them the most dangerous team in baseball when everything is clicking.

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.

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]

The clamor for Orioles top prospect Kevin Gausman began weeks ago, with fans scrutinizing every one of his starts for Double-A Bowie and manager Buck Showalter facing regular questions about when the right-hander would arrive to bolster a faltering rotation. Gausman arrived in Baltimore on Wednesday, one day ahead of his expected debut in Toronto, to find his new locker at Camden Yards surrounded by eager media members . It was an experience familiar to several of Gausman's Orioles teammates.

The knee-jerk reaction to Jim Johnson's third straight blown save is to pull him from the closer's spot for now. I'm probably in the minority here. But I don't do it. And I know Orioles manager Buck Showalter won't do it. He said as much last night when we asked whether there he was absolutely going with Johnson in a save situation on Monday. “Yeah,” he said. “Come back tomorrow and watch it again.” Johnson saved 35 regular season games in a row before these three disasters.

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.

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.

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.

Orioles left-hander Brian Matusz had plenty of help in his fourth Grapefruit League start Tuesday afternoon against the Phillies at Ed Smith Stadium. Coming off back-to-back scoreless outings, Matusz's outing Tuesday wasn't his best of the spring, but the 25-year-old took another step toward earning a spot in the Orioles' starting rotation. He threw a spring training-high five innings, allowing seven hits — including three hits to lead off innings —but yielded just one run. "It's going to happen over the course of a season, multiple times," Matusz said.

-- Heading into Thursday night, Orioles left-hander Brian Matuszhad strung together four quality starts and, gradually, was putting to rest concerns that he had lost the form that once made him the organization's most promising pitcher. Those worries would have faded even deeper into the past with a strong performance against a good hitting Boston Red Sox team at Fenway Park, where Matusz has struggled recently. Instead, Matusz turned in his shortest and worst start of this season, lasting just two-plus innings while allowing a career-high-tying five walks in a 7-0 loss to the Red Sox. “It was just everything [Thursday]

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.