Orioles Dominated By Another Young Starting Pitcher In 4-2 Defeat

The Orioles have made a habit out of making starting pitchers look like aces this season. And last season. And for a good two-thirds of the season before that.

When the O’s have faced a journeyman, for the most part, things have been rough going until they got to the bullpen, and especially when opposing a talented starter with a healthy repertoire, like Cleveland’s Gavin Williams.

For the second time in this series they came up a possibly emerging ace – Parker Messick took a no hitter into the ninth on Thursday – and Saturday Williams befuddled them for seven innings in a 4-2 loss, dropping them to 10-11 on the season. The Orioles entered Saturday scuffling in the first five innings of games – ranking 23rd in slugging percentage (.348) and 22nd in OPS (.669), with the fifth-highest K-rate as well (26%).

Those numbers only got worse and they struck out 16 total times in this game, with he 3-5 hitters (Pete Alonso, Dylan Beavers and Colton Cowser) went 0-12 with 11 Ks.

Yuck.

Williams had them chasing and guessing for almost all of his seven innings of work, making a mistake to still-torrid outfielder Leody Taveras in one of the best outings of his career (11 Ks, one walk, three hits. He picked up 18 swing and misses, continuing a highly-alarming trend for an Orioles lineup long-starved for consistency and they couldn’t lay off his sweeper (a 54% called strike and whiff rate is just silly).

So, um, yeah, this is the part of the story where we share the obligatory quote from the Orioles skipper – now Craig Albernaz but it could have been Tony Mansolino or Brandon Hyde before that – talking about the opposing starter like a combination of Bob Gibson and Cy Young and Greg Madux.

“I know Gavin pretty well,” said Albernaz, who came over from the Guardians staff, “and he has some of the best stuff I would say in the league. “… We couldn’t see the breaking ball early enough to make an adjustment, or hold off on it.”

The bad news is Joey Cantillo, Sunday’s starter, is presenting himself like another young arm making a turn for the better under the Guardians’ expert stewardship (maybe the Orioles shoulda poached their pitching coaches instead of their former bench coach?). The good news, I guess, is for the first time all series the O’s scored a run in the first six innings of a game.

While the late-inning theatrics came up short Saturday – Gunnar Henderson eighth-inning solo shot – at least they have Jeremiah Jackson’s three-run blast on Friday night that prevented a potential sweep. Cleveland starters in the series have dominated 21 innings, allowing 9 hits and 3 ER, while walking six and striking out 25(!).

Mean Dean

Orioles starter Dean Kremer had one of his best April starts of his career going – he is a notoriously slow starter and began this season on AAA despite being a rotation constant the past three years – and was getting ahead, flashing his command and getting soft contact. Until weak-hitting Guardians shortstop Bryan Rocchio – the No. 9 hitter in a very suspect lineup – punched a three-run homer with two outs in the fifth.

Kremer faced a lefty-heavy lineup and leaned on his splitter, which helped him got ahead with regularity.

“Just one pitch, but other than that he looked really good,” Albernaz noted.

"Other than that it was a really good outing," Kremer said.

Odds And Ends

Sam Basallo has been far more solid behind the plate than anyone could have reasonably hoped for under any circumstances, let alone with him behind the plate this much with Adley Rutschman on the Injured List … Taveras is now batting .368 after hitting his first homer of the season, with a 1.015 OPS in 38 at bats. Without him and Jackson performing at an elite level this offense would really be in the dumps … Pretending Cowser is capable of putting together MLB at bats right now is laughable. He struck out four times in four at bats, dropping him to a.178 average on the season with a .469 OPS. Even with all of the outfield injuries this team better get real about what’s going on with the former second-overall pick, who is not a special defender, either. He’s struck out 16 times in 53 plate appearances. “He’s our guy and he’s got to figure it out,” Albernaz said. At some point soon he might have to figure it out in AAA.