What went wrong in the Orioles’ 10-0 defeat to the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night?
In trying to identify the top three losing factors with the addition of home plate for any not-so-honorable mentions and other notes, we go around the bases after the 37th game of the 2016 season.
1st — It didn’t take much for Tuesday’s game to get out of hand, but a pair of 0-2 counts handled poorly by Orioles pitching in the fifth inning turned a close game into a blowout. Ubaldo Jimenez had given up a one-out single to Nori Aoki and was ahead 0-2 on Seth Smith before eventually walking him to put two men on for the heart of the Seattle order. This spelled trouble as Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz registered back-to-back RBI singles to extend the lead from 2-0 to 4-0. Brian Matusz then entered and quickly got ahead 0-2 on Kyle Seager before throwing a 90 mph fastball right down the middle that was clubbed for a three-run home run to make it 7-0 in the fifth. It was elementary after that.
2nd — It may not have mattered that much with the pitching struggles, but the Orioles bats failing to register a pulse put little pressure on Wade Miley, who entered the night with a 4.91 ERA and had given up eight homers in his first seven starts. In the first, the Orioles walked twice and made the Seattle lefty throw 30 pitches, but they didn’t seriously challenge him again until it was 10-0 in the bottom of the sixth. Baltimore was shut out for the third time all season and registered a season-low two hits in the lopsided defeat.
3rd — He was able to limit the damage to two runs in the first, but a 34-pitch opening frame from Jimenez set a bad tone coming off Sunday’s late-inning stumble. Their seven-game winning streak was bound to end, but the Orioles had to wait around 48 hours to get back on the diamond and their starter put them in a hole before they even stepped to the plate for the first time. Jimenez settled in for the second, third, and fourth, but the damage was done at the beginning and end of his outing as his ERA has ballooned to 5.60 after giving up six runs in 4 1/3 innings, his shortest start of the season.
Home — Entering the game to face a lineup featuring seven of nine hitters swinging from the left side, Matusz retired only two of the seven left-handed bats he faced as Seager’s three-run shot and Cano’s RBI double to left-center an inning later were particularly crippling. In 2016, left-handed hitters have gone 5-for-11 with a home run and five walks against the Orioles’ lefty specialist, who is sporting a 12.00 ERA in seven appearances since being activated from the disabled list on April 23. … Cruz went 3-for-3 with a home run, a walk, and five RBIs against his former club and has now hit safely in his last 13 games at Camden Yards, a streak dating back to Sept. 12, 2014. … Vance Worley pitched three scoreless innings and has now registered seven straight scoreless relief outings covering 13 innings this season. … Chris Davis recorded the only extra-base hit of the night for the Orioles with a double in the sixth inning. … Former Oriole and St. Paul’s grad Steve Johnson pitched a scoreless ninth for Seattle. … Chris Tillman goes to the hill trying to snap the Orioles’ two-game skid on Wednesday night while the Mariners will start right-hander Taijuan Walker.
