With the Orioles earning a 2-1 victory to send Toronto to a franchise-worst 1-8 start, I’ve offered a dozen thoughts, each in 50 words or less:
1. It was another nail-biting ninth for Zach Britton, but he converted his fourth save of 2017 and his 53rd consecutive overall, the third-longest streak in major league history. The lefty is going to blow one eventually, but the Orioles wanted to keep the struggling Blue Jays down.
2. Kevin Gausman turned in his best performance of the young season, showing much better fastball command and displaying better timing with his mechanics. His 64.9 percent strike percentage was much more in line with his career mark than what we saw in his first two outings.
3. Jonathan Schoop and J.J. Hardy drove in a run each in the top of the fifth after turning a beautiful double play in the second inning that involved a Hardy glove flip to Schoop. It was fun seeing that after their respective defensive struggles in Boston on Tuesday night.
4. Gausman was a ground-ball machine early in the game and induced 11 on the night. He only recorded three strikeouts and 10 swinging strikes, but he did a fine job keeping pitches down in the zone for most of the night.
5. The right-hander did lose his fastball command in the sixth as he missed low-and-away targets to leave fastballs up on consecutive doubles by Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson. However, he made quality pitches to Troy Tulowitzki and Russell Martin to conclude his night with a 2-1 lead.
6. After throwing 21 pitches in the fourth and 20 pitches in the fifth, you have to wonder if Gausman ran out of gas in the bottom of the sixth, especially after the Orioles were retired on five pitches in the top half of the inning. He needed a breather there.
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7. Darren O’Day is looking more and more like himself after pitching a 1-2-3 seventh inning that included a Kevin Pillar strikeout and two grounders. It looks like he’s rediscovered his command after his first two rough outings in Baltimore.
8. After being the butt of jokes with a 135.00 ERA after his disastrous season debut, Francisco Liriano pitched exceptionally well with 10 strikeouts. It’s impressive to strike out that many on only 91 pitches in 6 2/3 innings.
9. I’m a bigger defender of Bobby Dickerson than most since third base coaches universally aren’t nearly aggressive enough, but his send of Trey Mancini with no outs in the fifth was brutal. He had no chance of scoring without a horrendous throw to the backstop or something of that nature.
10. Welington Castillo deserved a pat on the back from Britton after that ninth inning with several balls in the dirt. The catcher is also off to a good start at the plate hitting .385 with his new club.
11. It’s still early, but Craig Gentry is now 0-for-12 with six strikeouts. Buck Showalter playing him over Hyun Soo Kim — who’s never gotten any semblance of a real opportunity against lefty starters — is one thing, but batting Gentry in the leadoff spot is questionable at best.
12. The Orioles struck out 15 times with Gentry and Davis combining for seven of them. A strong pitching performance was exactly what they needed to win their third straight game over Toronto this season.
