With the Orioles being shut out for the fourth time this season in a 12-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians, I’ve offered a dozen thoughts, each in 50 words or less:
1. The Orioles made history in the wrong way Monday by allowing five or more runs for the 16th consecutive game, setting a new AL record formerly held by the 1937 St. Louis Browns. They’re four shy of the 1924 Philadelphia Phillies for the major league record (dating back to 1913).
2. Jason Kipnis led off three straight innings for the Indians, who sent nine hitters to the plate in both the fourth and fifth and eight in the sixth. The Orioles gave up 11 runs over those three frames, but Cleveland also left 13 runners on base for the night. Astonishing.
3. Dylan Bundy faced one batter over the minimum through the first three innings before surrendering four doubles, a walk, and a hit batter in the fourth. Seeing him struggle to command his pitches and go off the rails like so many other Orioles pitchers was just deflating.
4. Despite pitching three scoreless innings to begin the night, Bundy went to three-ball counts to five of the first nine hitters he faced and gave up some loud outs. Both he and Buck Showalter acknowledged after the game that all wasn’t well even before the fourth inning.
5. This outing could have simply been some regression to the mean for a young pitcher who entered Monday with a 4.46 fielding independent pitching mark or Bundy could be tiring from the heaviest workload of his career. His average fastball velocity of 91 mph was his slowest in a month.
6. Vidal Nuno has now given up eight earned runs and three home runs in 2 2/3 innings since being recalled last week. He’s shown no signs of belonging in the major leagues with a 10.43 ERA in 14 2/3 innings with the Orioles.
7. I hate to say it, but Indians hitters wouldn’t have been able to generate nearly as much exit velocity if a batting tee had instead been set up at home plate. These are the kind of thoughts that creep into my mind during these blowouts.
8. If we’re being honest, even a good performance from Bundy would have been wasted with the way Corey Kluber was dealing for the Indians. The 2014 AL Cy Young Award winner retired 15 in a row at one point and struck out 11 in a three-hit shutout.
9. Old Toronto nemesis Edwin Encarnacion collected his 1,500th career hit with a double in the fourth inning. Contrary to popular belief, half of those have not come against the Orioles, but he does have more hits (129) against them than any other team.
10. Francisco Lindor, arguably Cleveland’s best player, went 0-for-6 and was the only Cleveland starter without a hit. So, there’s that.
11. I liked Adam Jones’ approach trying to go the other way against Kluber to try to account for his nasty curveball. It resulted in a first-inning single and decent contact again in the fourth. He’s gone the other way more this year than he has at any point since 2006.
12. The Orioles have won just five of their last 16 games with four coming against National League teams. They’ve lost nine of their last 10 against AL clubs. Any possibility of trading leagues with Washington?
