Starting Pitching

One after another, like line drives up the middle, reminders keep coming of what the Orioles' starting rotation could have been and what it has turned out to be. Saturday afternoon: Adam Loewen's pitching career comes to an abrupt, painful and heartbreaking end. Saturday evening: Daniel Cabrera falls behind the Detroit Tigers 6-0 in the first inning. Yesterday afternoon: Brian Burres struggles through 5 1/3 innings against the Tigers, throwing 108 pitches and giving up three runs - relatively speaking for this staff lately, a gem. Of course, the Orioles managed to win despite Cabrera's reversion to form - and lost yesterday when the offense managed all of three hits.

NEW YORK -- It's a common trend in the postseason, but through the Orioles' first four playoff games, starting pitching has dominated. In four postseason games, the Orioles starters own a 1.82 ERA (5 ER in 24 2/3 IP), the second best mark of all playoff teams to the Tigers' 1.75 ERA. Orioles starters have 16 strikeouts and 5 walks over 19 innings. No Orioles starter has allowed more than two earned runs this postseason, and the Orioles are a combined two outs away from getting quality starts in all four games - wild-card winner Joe Saunders and ALDS Game 1 starter Jason Hammel each threw 5 2/3 innings.

They are a confusing bunch, the Orioles. They have the major leagues' home run leader, three All-Stars, an ace on his way to 20 wins, five or six players en route to 100 RBIs, a closer who should get 30 to 35 saves, and a strong rookie pitcher.But they are losing ground. Little by little, bit by bit, the New York Yankees are pulling away and the Orioles are not responding, tangled in their web of inconsistent play and clubhouse unhappiness.Tied for first place on May 29, the Orioles were two games out June 9, four games behind two weeks later, and now stand six games back.

With Jason Hammel rejoining the Orioles on Thursday and given the fact that Chris Tillman has yet to be scratched from his next start, I asked Orioles manager Buck Showalter  about the concept of going to a six-man rotation for the stretch run. He quickly shook his head, lost on the term "rotation. " Having numbers is good. Adding pitchers like Steve Johnson and perhaps Jake Arrieta to a mix that already included Hammel, Tillman, Wei-Yin Chen, Zach Britton, Joe Saunders and Miguel Gonzalez can help the Orioles reach their ultimate goal - the playoffs.

The Orioles started their micro-homestand last night as they had ended an eventful six-game road trip on Sunday, by punishing an opponent with equal parts starting pitching and offense. The result was a 7-1 win over the Kansas City Royals behind Scott Erickson (3-8) before 37,501 at Camden Yards.Erickson came within one inning of the Orioles' third complete game in four games but instead settled for his first home win since Sept. 11. He previously had struggled for an 0-4 record and 6.41 ERA at home, largely because of his inability to recapture the heavy assortment that allowed him to lead the American League in innings pitched last year.

On the Orioles' bullpen Hitters don't hit, so the games are always close. This causes [Sam] Perlozzo to overreact to the slightest sign of fatigue in the starter, which causes him to go to the bullpen earlier than he should. Then the process repeats with each reliever and the tired bullpen is now very hittable. At this point, I would expect them to finish dead last because they have virtually no starting pitching and a bullpen that is pretty worn out. Is the bullpen tired, or did they just decide to mail this one in?

On the field: The Orioles have had a series of lackadaisical plays in the last few games, and had another last night. Tigers shortstop Chris Gomez hit a liner to left one out into the fifth inning, and he took a wide turn around first and thought about going for second. Seeing Jeffrey Hammonds' throw and realizing he had no shot, Gomez put on the brakes and slipped a bit getting back to first. Shortstop Cal Ripken turned to make a throw to the bag -- but Rafael Palmeiro didn't cover the base, standing where he was when the play began.

The opportunities keep coming this season for Orioles pitchers. Radhames Liz is trying to make good on another chance. Garrett Olson made 21 starts, and few of them were quality. Chris Waters was plucked out of near anonymity and Dennis Sarfate out of the bullpen. The Orioles aren't asking for much, and they're getting far less than that. Brian Burres became the latest Oriole to be granted another shot last night and do little with it. Five pitches into Burres' outing, the Orioles were already facing a two-run deficit, and things never really got much better in a listless 8-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox before an announced 15,398 at Camden Yards.

What a difference good starting pitching makes. The games are completed by midnight, the box score is guaranteed to be part of the morning paper, relievers aren't burnt out and, for the Orioles, it's the difference between winning and losing.Mike Mussina shut down the Milwaukee Brewers as the Orioles built a big lead yesterday, on their way to a 10-5 victory before 44,175 at Camden Yards. A three-run homer to Jose Valentin in the seventh inning muddied Mussina's final pitching line -- five runs (two earned)

Even after yesterday's 3-2 win over Detroit, which lowered the Orioles' earned run average to the best mark in the American League, it would be wise to remember that:A. This team hasn't been west of Lake Ontario yet.B. The Orioles have been beating up on Cleveland and Detroit, no one's idea of the 1927 Yankees reincarnated, and at home, no less.C. Cal Ripken doesn't have a home run and Glenn Davis hasn't gotten his uniform dirty yet.Still, it would seem that after two weeks, the biggest problems facing Orioles manager John Oates are getting his relief pitchers into the game, especially at home, and keeping expectations to a minimum.

For the second consecutive season, Tommy Hunter is helping pitch the Texas Rangers into the playoffs. On Friday night, he did it as an Oriole. Hunter threw seven shutout innings -- tying his season-longest outing -- and the Orioles' offense scored often against an unusually shaky Dan Haren in an 8-3 beating of the Los Angeles Angels before an announced crowd of 24,022. “That's my goal, to go out there and throw a complete game every time,” said Hunter, whose only other seven-inning stint was his last win, on Aug. 26. “I've been coming up short these last couple of outings -- getting into the seventh inning and having a rough couple of seventh innings.

For the second time in a little more than a year, the Orioles will hold a bobblehead night on Saturday for a young player who will not be on hand to enjoy it. That couldn't be helped, because the promotion - like a similar one honoring Nolan Reimold last May - was scheduled well before erstwhile top pitching prospect Brian Matusz was shipped off to Triple-A Norfolk, but it also can't help but focus more unwanted attention on the Orioles' sputtering...

In the past six days, over the course of a trip to the West Coast, I was on six different planes, and drove close to 500 miles, so I'm a bit fried at the moment, and I'm going to write this column before I get the final results of the IronBirds' Wednesday night road game with Staten Island, so I will have a bit more time to recharge my batteries than I would on a normal Wednesday night. In the last column I wrote before heading off to the left coast, my first time out there in case you were curious, I made some Harford County sports predictions, one of which was that our men in Aberdeen would buck their recent trend of losing seasons and finish somewhere on or over the .500 mark at season's end, and possibly compete for a wild-card spot in the playoffs.

It has become almost a daily occurrence this spring. Orioles manager Buck Showalter will be asked after a game about his starting pitcher that day, and his answer is non-committal and underwhelmed. For all the talk about the team's beefed-up lineup and revamped bullpen, everyone in the Orioles' clubhouse knows that the team will make significant strides only if the starting pitching holds up. It's far too early to panic, but the performance of several of the starters the past couple of weeks has, at the very least, raised some concern.

One reason the Rangers are looking to move Michael Young for starting pitching is Neftali Feliz apparently is headed back to the closer's role. Mark Lowe, who had been billed as a possible stopper, didn't help his cause Thursday when he walked the leadoff man with a two-run lead in the ninth. Feliz would welcome a return to the role he filled well enough to win Rookie of the Year. … Jon Garland's injury is a blow for the Dodgers, whose key is the depth of their five-man rotation.

It was fitting that the Orioles' starting pitching was the story on a day when Buck Showalter became the first manager since 1900 to take over a team in August or later and win more games the rest of the way than it had before he arrived. In a doubleheader sweep Friday of the Detroit Tigers, Chris Tillman and Jeremy Guthrie combined to give up one earned run and five hits in 15 innings, continuing the run of strong starts since Showalter's arrival. Tillman allowed just one run over seven innings in the Orioles' 10-6 victory in Game 1, and Guthrie turned in eight shutout innings in the nightcap to help the Orioles claim a 2-1 victory in front of an announced 20,870 at Camden Yards.

CHICAGO -- Three wins in three nights at Comiskey Park. Five wins in a row on the road. Thirteen wins in their past 20 games.Why, glory be: The Orioles are almost starting to play up to their $42 million payroll."

Here's the most depressing thing the Orioles take into the All-Star break: Ravens training camp opens in 14 days. And you know what that means. That means in a little more than two weeks, the Orioles become an afterthought to lots of sports fans in this town. Suddenly talk radio will be filled with riveting discussions about the Ravens' backup tight end and whether the sixth-round draft choice can stick as a special teams guy. You'll open this sports section every day and find three or four stories on such pressing topics as who did well in the morning passing drills and what's the extent of the injury to Todd Heap's shoulder, elbow, hamstring, etc. And at that point, there will be people all over town turning to each other and saying: "Hey, are the Orioles still playing?

The only thing to do at this point is to channel Dennis Green, the former NFL coach who is remembered as much for one post-game tirade as just about anything his teams did on the football field. Watch this Orioles team for any length of time and you can't help but hear Green in your head, reminding you that "they are who we thought they were," a rebuilding team in the midst of a transitional season that isn't going to be very pretty. The Orioles teased you for a couple of weeks. They won three straight series against some pretty good competition.