The Good:

• Jeremy Guthrie scattered a few hits (and a couple HBPs - maybe Guthrie's trying to pitch inside more; his number of HBPs almost doubled last year) pretty well. Final line; 7 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 4 K, 1 HR.
• Matt Wieters' (apparently) new swing looks much better (more up-right, little larger leg-kick, keeping the top hand on the bat  a little longer maybe). He seems quicker to the ball, and like there's more authority behind it.  Went 2-4 with a double in this one.

The Bad:

• Having not seen Mark Reynolds before, I don't know if he's doing something different either. The broadcasters have said that he's doing a better job making contact than he has before - which is true; his strike-out rate is down - bu there's been a loss of power there too (as a result?). Reynolds striking out 30% instead of 40% of the time is good, unless that means he hits 20 home runs instead of 35.
• More generally, Scott Baker shut the O's offense down in this one. Birds had just one walk and four hits, whiling striking out 9 times against the Twins right-hander. They strung together some baserunners against the Twins' pen, but were only able to push a single run across.

The Final:

Two game outburst of runs, then back to "normal". Sometimes an opposing pitcher is just on his game though. The split leaves the O's at 8-10 for when the Yankees come to town. So a sweep there would put them back over .500, I guess.

The Orioles took game three of this four game series, and can take the series with a win tonight.  As Jeremy Guthrie said in an earlier tweet, they can start to "protect this yard tonight with a big win."  Hopefully the O's can get back up to .500 tonight.

Twins:

	Batting	Fielding	fWAR
Denard Span	.306/.342/.403	3	0.7
Alexi Casilla	.128/.190/0.179	-1	-0.3
Jason Kubel	.323/.362/.492	1	0.6
Michael Cuddyer	.254/.319/.349	-2	-0.1
Jim Thome	.163/.280/.279	0	-0.2
Danny Valencia	.238/.324/.302	-1	0.0
Luke Hughes	.200/.200/.240	0	-0.2
Drew Butera	.174/.174/.217	1	0.0
Jason Repko	.200/.273/.200	0	0.0

Morneau and Young are still out with flu-like symptoms, and Mauer remains on the DL.  The Twins struggle offensively without these guys and will continue to struggle until they return.  Kubel and Span have held their end of the workload, but Cuddyer and Thome really need to improve offensively if they want to win games without three of their better players.

Scott Baker:

ERA	FIP	xFIP	K/9	BB/9	GB%	fWAR
4.50	5.60	4.13	7.5	3.5	38.5%	-0.1

Baker's numbers aren't very good, and though he did well in his last start (7 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, ND), he has struggled this year.  That high ERA can be attributed to his low GB%, which leads to more fly balls, which means more home runs (averages 2 per 9 IP).  He also needs to bring down that BB/9 to get more efficient starts.



Baker brings a 91 MPH fastball which he works in with a nice slider.  He's more about working well and spotting with his decent stuff than blowing hitters away.

	Batting	Fielding	fWAR
Brian Roberts	.274/.293/.466	-1	0.2
Nick Markakis	.215/.288/.338	-2	-0.3
Derrek Lee	.206/.306/.270	0	-0.2
Vladimir Guerrero	.268/.268/.408	0	-0.1
Luke Scott	.211/.295/.421	2	0.2
Adam Jones	.237/.258/.407	1	0.3
Mark Reynolds	.200/.286/.345	-3	-0.3
Matt Wieters	.250/.333/.500	0	0.5
Robert Andino	.318/.400/.318	2	0.3

The Orioles got the win yesterday, with 5 runs on 8 hits, but only walked once (yikes).  Really need better plate discipline, and they also left 6 on base.  Though the power was there (Wieters and Guerrero both hit their third homers of the year), the walks need to be there if the O's want to win more ball games over the ling-haul.

Jeremy Guthrie:

ERA	FIP	xFIP	K/9	BB/9	GB%	fWAR
3.32	3.94	4.41	4.3	1.2	38.5%	0.3

Guthrie got knocked around in his previous start against the Tribe, but still comes into today having been decent so far this season.  He doesn't make many people miss, but he walks very few as well.  Though his GB% is low, only about 7% of his flyballs actually leave the yard (compare that to Scott Baker's 18%).

Guthrie mixes in a good number* of pitches but again, none major swing-and-miss stuff.  He has a big drop off in velocities from his fastball to his curve (90 MPH to 72 MPH, respectively), so he occasionally catches hitters off balance then, but he uses that curve sparingly.  Pretty good change up to complement the fastball as well.

* The PItchFX is all over the place, with the fastball showing a wide range of movement. Hard to say where one ends and one begins, or if the one fastball just has a wide range of movements, or if there are PitchFX calibration issues (some of all three I'd guess). Given that, it's being presented as-is.

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Stats: UZR, WAR, ERA, FIP, xFIP, K/9 & BB/9, GB%, PitchFX  

 

The Orioles bounced back in a strong way yesterday against the Twins' ace, Carl Pavano.  They face Nick Blackburn in the third game of this four game series. If they can score 11 in the next two games combined, they have a strong chance of winning both.

Twins:

	Batting	Fielding	fWAR
Denard Span	.313/.352/.418	3	0.8
Jason Repko	.286/.286/.286	0	0.0
Jason Kubel	.311/.354/.492	1	0.5
Michael Cuddyer	.250/.308/.300	-2	-0.3
Jim Thome	.171/.261/.293	0	-0.2
Danny Valencia	.220/.313/.288	-1	-0.1
Luke Hughes	.190/.190/.238	0	-0.2
Steve Holm	.286/.286/.429	0	0.0
Matt Tolbert	.214/.214/.321	0	0.0

The Twins bring a very battered lineup to Baltimore today, without their top two hitters.  Joe Mauer is still on the DL and Morneau is out of today's game because of the flu.  Delmon Young also is out with the flu.  Much of the Twins struggles have been because of either the absence or lack of production from these top guys on their squad.

Nick Blackburn:

ERA	FIP	xFIP	K/9	BB/9	GB%	fWAR
3.06	4.09	3.93	5.09	2.04	51.6%	0.2

Blackburn enters with a 1-2 record, getting knocked around in his previous start.  His numbers aren't bad, just ran into some bad luck last time out.

Blackburn doesn't have real hard stuff - only topping out in the upper-80's, but his change-up is rather good especially to complement his curveball.

Orioles:

	Batting	Fielding	fWAR
Brian Roberts	.275/.296/.478	-1	0.2
Nick Markakis	.197/.275/.328	-2	-0.3
Derrek Lee	.220/.324/.288	0	-0.1
Vladimir Guerrero	.254/.254/.358	0	-0.2
Luke Scott	.200/.293/.429	2	0.2
Adam Jones	.232/.254/.393	1	0.2
Mark Reynolds	.212/.300/.365	-3	-0.2
Matt Wieters	.239/.314/.435	0	0.3
Robert Andino	.368/.455/.368	2	0.4

The offense has picked up a bit this week, and with the win yesterday the O's were in the win column for the first time in over a week.  Not enough walks though, need to keep working on that.

Zach Britton:

ERA	FIP	xFIP	K/9	BB/9	GB%	fWAR
2.75	3.37	3.54	6.41	3.20	53.1%	0.4

Britton has (possibly) been the best pitcher for the Orioles so far.  Though his walk count is a little high(er) than I would like, a 2:1 K:BB ratio isn't too bad.  He's been able to keep guys off balance, and aside for a rough start last outing against the Indians, he's been pretty solid.

Relies heavily on the two-seamer with a good change and slider mixed in there.  He keeps the off-speed low, which helps him keep the ball in the yard.

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Stats: UZR, WAR, ERA, FIP, xFIP, K/9 & BB/9, GB%, PitchFX

Jeremy Guthrie has a career BABIP of .268. The league average is usually in the .295-.300 range (and over his tenure in Baltimore, the O's have had a .300 BABIP as a team), and (major league) pitchers are generally thought to not have much control over the outcomes when a ball is put into play. Guthrie has pitched enough innings with such a low mark though, that we need to start thinking that there's something more than luck involved. With about 2,600 career balls in play against, we'd need to regress Guthrie's BABIP about 60% to the mean. That means our current estimate of his true talent BABIP is around .285 (or about what he posted in 2009). Some starters who had career BABIPs of .285? Steve Trachsel, Rick Sutcliffe, and Rubes Marquard and Walberg.

So how has he managed to have balls find gloves so often? It's a tricky question that'll be hard to answer with any certainty until HitFX comes out, but here are some ideas:

The Good:

• Jake Arrieta looked good, pounding the strike-zone with his fastball and his breaking-balls. He did miss up and out of the zone a little with the heater and ended up walking three, but that didn't come back to bite him at all. Final line; 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K.
• The offense hit well, though the 11 runs was partially due to stringing some baserunners together. Vlad singled and homered, Adam Jones had two hits and a walk(!), Matt Wieters also had a couple base-knocks (including a double off the scoreboard), and Robert Andino went 3-3 plus a free pass out of the nine-hole. The funny thing is, the team had more walks (6 vs. 4) and showed more power (3 HR vs. 1 HR, 2 2B) yesterday than they did today.

The Bad:

• Luke Scott didn't get on base (the only O's starter not to do so). That's about as bad as it gets in this one. (I enjoy when this section is hard to fill seriously.)

The Final:

So, yeah. Quite a way to end a losing streak here. Hopefully the O's didn't use up all their luck for the week in this one.

The Good:

• Chris Tillman didn't exactly dominate, but he pitched well enough to at least hold on to his rotation spot (not that sending him to the minors makes much sense to me - he should be learning to face major league batters / working on his mechanics with the majors league pitching coach). He still sat 89-90 with the fastball, topping out at 92 (if he's really trading velocity for control as they claim, why does he never even touch 95? Like to a bad hitter in an 0-2 count, why not go 95 at the letters? And, interestingly, the pitch he seems to have better command of - to me - is the curveball). Most everything was up in the zone though, but thankfully the Twins aren't exactly Murderers Row. And interestingly, he generated 13 groundballs to 6 flyballs. Final line; 6.2 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 0 BB, 5 K.
• Clay Rapada had a heck of an O's debut, striking out 3 of the 4 batters he faced (the fourth grounded out).
• Adam Jones and Matt Wieters each hit their second home runs of the season, over the span of three plate appearances in the 7th inning. I said last week that Wieters looked like he had more power in his swing batting right-handed, and he crushed the ball. Then Luke Scott added a solo shot of his own, pinch-hitting in the 9th inning.
• The O's walked 5 times in the game, but part of that was Fransisco Liriano only throwing about half his pitches for strikes.

The Bad:

• Ahem. The O's offensive woes continue, outside of three swings. Need more runs guys.
• Kevin Gregg! Proven Closer! The guy you want out there in high leverage situations! Comes in for the top of the 9th with the O's down 3-2, walks two, gives up a hit (and another rocket that Adam Jones ran down), and left with the O's down 5-2. He got boo'ed by the fans, but I don't think that's quite fair. Not like this was unexpected. It's like booing Cesar Izturis for not hitting. If you expect Izturis to hit, then you're the one doing something wrong. Need to redirect those at the front office he not only gave him a bunch of money but really, really wanted to sign him.

The Final:

Eight in a row. Just sad.

After the Orioles' great start to the season, this recent spate of losing has been quite a downer. But it wasn't totally unexpected. When the O's were winning, I noted that the offense wasn't doing well but the run prevention - largely through a low BABIP and HR/FB% against - had picked them up. Neither was likely to continue for the entire season, but it's the good fortune that ran out first.

While the pitching staff has actually started to give up more than one run per game, the bats are still sputtering. The O's have the third worst wOBA in baseball at .284. They're rarely walking (6.4% rate is also third worst) which, combined with their .254 BABIP, is keeping their OBP down to .280 - dead last in the majors.