Strike Zone

With second baseman Ryan Flaherty struggling at the plate, Orioles manager Buck Showalter has deflected the attention to highlight Flaherty's improved defense. But in Thursday night's 6-2 loss to the Royals, Flaherty placed the spotlight to himself. After a sixth-inning third-strike call that ended the frame with a runner on second in a 4-2 game, the normally cool-headed Flaherty slammed his helmet and bat to the ground in frustration. “He thought it was a strike, I didn't,” Flaherty said.

With second baseman Ryan Flaherty struggling at the plate, Orioles manager Buck Showalter has deflected the attention to highlight Flaherty's improved defense. But in Thursday night's 6-2 loss to the Royals, Flaherty placed the spotlight to himself. After a sixth-inning third-strike call that ended the frame with a runner on second in a 4-2 game, the normally cool-headed Flaherty slammed his helmet and bat to the ground in frustration. “He thought it was a strike, I didn't,” Flaherty said.

BOWIE -- Orioles pitching prospect Kevin Gausman has hit some rough patches through the first few weeks of his first full professional season while pitching at Double-A Bowie, but the 22-year-old right-hander's steady development continues to be more important than any pitching line. Gausman, who is ranked the No. 2 prospect in the Orioles' organization and No. 26 in all of baseball by Baseball America, will enter his fifth start of the season on Sunday against Harrisburg with a 1-2 record and a 4.74 ERA and has allowed four or more earned runs in two of his four starts.

ANAHEIM, Calif. - Left fielder Nate McLouth is one of the Orioles' hottest hitters at the plate over the past two weeks, but it still hasn't been enough to earn everyday starts against left-handed pitching. Over his past 10 games entering Thursday, the left-handed hitting McLouth had recorded a .432/.523/.676 batting line. He's reached safely in 17 of the 20 games he's started this season. "When you see guys spitting on balls a couple inches off the plate….you can tell he's seeing the ball good and letting it travel," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said.

Orioles right-handed relief pitcher Jason Berken looks like a different man this spring after losing at least 20 pounds since last season. Fortunately for the Orioles, he again is looking like the guy who was the club's best pitcher in the first half of 2010. In his two outings this season, Berken has faced 10 batters and retired nine of them, including six on strikeouts. In the seventh inning of Sunday's win, his first big league game since being shut down Aug. 13 with shoulder inflammation, Berken struck out the side, throwing 10 of his 15 pitches for strikes in the Orioles' 5-1 win against Tampa Bay. In Monday's home opener, Berken pitched the seventh and the eighth, allowing just one hit and striking out three in the club's 5-1 win against the Detroit Tigers.

The heater rides in at 91 miles an hour, belt-high and straight, giving Orioles hitter Matt Wieters a good view of what looks like a strike in the making. As it reaches the plate, it dives toward the ground. No mortal can say for sure whether the fastball from Angels pitcher Jered Weaver would have grazed the imaginary border of the strike zone, located at Wieters' knees. But umpire Kerwin Danley has called "strike" on two previous close pitches. Wieters swings, awkwardly. His slow roller ends the inning.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Orioles reliever Todd Frohwirth doesn't complain much, but he couldn't hold back after a series of close ball/strike calls went against him during a four-run California Angels rally on Saturday night."

In his defense of beleaguered umpire John Hirschbeck the other day, Ben McDonald hit on a touchy subject that produces a wide difference of opinion between hitters and pitchers -- the size of the strike zone.For years, pitchers have contended one way to speed up the game is a stricter enforcement of the strike zone. They particularly have contended that pitches at the top of the strike zone, defined as the midpoint between the armpits and waist, are consistently dismissed as being high.There is an obvious contradiction to that theory.

Major League Baseball vice president Sandy Alderson came out looking like the villain in the strike zone controversy that flared up between MLB and the umpires union, but the issue turned out to be more about semantics than substance. Alderson's attempt to get umpires to call more strikes was consistent with his crusade to standardize the strike zone - which is a noble quest - but his method of determining who was correctly enforcing his strike zone directive left him open to the charge that he was improperly trying to manipulate the game.

It's a little early to judge the Sandy Alderson strike zone experiment, but the early anecdotal returns appear to indicate that the higher strike is having an impact on the balance of power between pitchers and hitters. Obviously, the six strong performances out of the six starters who appeared in the season-opening series between the Orioles and Boston Red Sox are an indication that something is different from last year. Neither team is considered to have a particularly strong starting rotation, yet both teams looked like the Atlanta Braves.

BOWIE -- Orioles pitching prospect Kevin Gausman has hit some rough patches through the first few weeks of his first full professional season while pitching at Double-A Bowie, but the 22-year-old right-hander's steady development continues to be more important than any pitching line. Gausman, who is ranked the No. 2 prospect in the Orioles' organization and No. 26 in all of baseball by Baseball America, will enter his fifth start of the season on Sunday against Harrisburg with a 1-2 record and a 4.74 ERA and has allowed four or more earned runs in two of his four starts.

The Baltimore sports scene is blessed with a bunch of talented bloggers who bring their unique perspective to the conversation. Each week, I hope to chat with one of them in a regular feature called Blogger on Blogger. This week, I exchanged emails with Daniel Moroz, who blogs about the Orioles for his blog, Camden Crazies . MV: Why hasn't Jake Arrieta developed into the pitcher the Orioles hoped he would become, and at this point, is there anything more they can do as an organization to help him get the most out of his talent?

Jake Arrieta spoke for a few minutes about being sent down to Triple-A Norfolk on Monday. He expects to start Friday for the Tides. Here is what he said: "I wasn't doing my job well enough. That's the bottom line. The team needs me. They need me to be better. That's the bottom line, really. I wasn't good enough right now. " What will you work on at Triple-A? "It's pretty obvious. I talked to Buck about a few things. We talked about things as far as high anxiety situations, and he pretty much asked me, 'Why do you have high anxiety in any situation with the stuff that you have?

BOWIE - After a rocky Double-A debut Saturday, Orioles pitching prospect Kevin Gausman got back on track with six innings of one-run ball in Bowie's home opener Thursday night against Akron. In front of a Baysox defense that committed three errors, the Orioles' 2012 first-round draft pick struck out five and allowed just two hits in a 5-1 victory. Gausman walked none, but he hit a batter and threw two wild pitches. “Overall, I felt lke my stuff was probably the best it's been,” Gausman said.

Orioles right-hander Jake Arrieta made a huge push toward solidifying his case for the team's fifth starter spot on Thursday night, tossing six shutout innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates -- his third straight scoreless Grapefruit League outing -- at Ed Smith Stadium. Arrieta hasn't allowed a run over 14 2/3 innings in his past three spring outings. He allowed an unearned run in an exhibition start against Spain's World Baseball Classic team in the outing before that stretch. In five Grapefruit League outings, Arrieta has allowed just three earned runs and 11 hits, recording a 1.56 ERA with 16 strikeouts and eight walks.

Orioles outfielder Steve Pearce continued his spring power surge Sunday afternoon, hitting his team-high fourth homer in the Orioles' road split-squad game against the Phillies at Bright House Field. Pearce took an 0-2 pitch from Zach Miner over the left field fence in the second inning for a solo shot to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead. Miner relieved Phillies starter Roy Halladay, who left the game after just one inning with a stomach virus. With the homer, Pearce is hitting .407 (11-for-27)

The world is full of gray areas. That fuzzy line between right and wrong. That gap on the speedometer between 55 mph and the speed that gets you pulled over on I-95. Cleveland before they built Jacobs Field.The baseball world is full of them, too, and none has created more controversy than that theoretical box known as the strike zone.It is too big. It is too small. It is getting too narrow. It is far too wide. It is always changing. It hasn't changed in years. It depends entirely on who's doing the talking.

This season's strike zone seems to be causing more conflict between the umpires and Major League Baseball officials than between umpires and players. Umpires are outraged over instructions that have come to some of them in the past 10 days via e-mail and telephone calls from Sandy Alderson, baseball's chief of operations, two persons who had been told by umpires said yesterday. Alderson said that either the messages had been misinterpreted or the reaction "is all part of a political agenda that some people have," stemming from the bitter feelings between two factions of umpires over which union would represent them.

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- While the consensus is that Brian Matusz will make the Orioles' 25-man roster and pitch in the bullpen like he did superbly at the end of last season, the 26-year-old lefty has said repeatedly that he is approaching this spring as if he is going to once again pitch in the rotation. Matusz let his pitches make his case in his first start of the spring Wednesday night against the Minnesota Twins, Dominant from the beginning in the Orioles' 9-4 Grapefruit League victory, Matusz struck out six of the first seven batters he faced.

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- In the Orioles' attempt to remold right-hander Jair Jurrjens into his past All-Star form, progress comes in small phases. The Orioles have some time - and they're proving to have patience - especially considering spring training is longer this season. And while Jurrjens' final line in Tuesday afternoon's 6-6 tie with the Toronto Blue Jays wasn't pretty - he allowed three runs on five hits and two walks with two strikeouts in 2 2/3 innings - it was another step forward as he tries to build strength in his surgically repaired right knee.