Game 40: Orioles 7, Red Sox 8
The Good:
- The O's batters had a good approach at the plate, walking 8 times (4 by Luke Scott, and one each by Nick Markakis, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, and JJ Hardy). Scott's four free passes were a new career high, and give him as many unintentional walks on the day as Vlad has on the year.
- They also took advantage of an easy battery to run on by stealing bases left and right (two for Brian Roberts, and one each by Nick Markakis and Mark Reynolds).
- Reynolds also hit his 5th home run of the season, a shot to dead center.
- Vlad didn't walk (shocker!), but he did go 3-5 with a pair of doubles.
- You know, despite 5 shutout innings, Chris Tillman did not pitch well. He had some trouble throwing strikes and was up in the zone quite a bit. He walked 3 compared to just 2 K's. And he didn't even hit 91 mph with the fastball. He had a nice change-up, at least, but I think it's obvious that if the O's are going by current production then Tillman is the guy losing his rotation spot when Brian Matusz comes back. Sending Britton down for a bit to get an extra year of team control would be great, but there's virtually no way they'll do that, I think.
- Mike Gonzalez's tough season continued, as he gave up 4 runs on 3 hits while getting only one out. Three of them were unearned, thanks to a couple errors, but people are still going to be clamoring for him to be cut. Gonzalez isn't really as bad as his near 8 ERA would suggest - .351 BABIP and 18.3% HR/FB rate coming into this game overpower his decent strike-out (8.8 K/9) and walk (3.6 BB/9) numbers - and there's not much point in cutting bait given the lack of a great replacement.
- Jeremy Accardo followed Gonzalez, allowed two of Mike's baserunners to score (the third charged to the lefty), and then got only one out himself in between allowing a run on two hits.
- Kevin Gregg got an out before blowing the save in the 9th, giving up two runs on two hits and a walk.
- Derrek Lee had to leave the game with an oblique strain, and he might be out a while with the injury.
Welp, at least this isn't new. O's take an early lead in Boston, and then the bullpen blows it. Sucks. But as soon as it went from 6-0 to 6-1, you could kind of feel it coming.
