Counterintuitive Pitching

Sorry, I don’t have a song for you this time. Suffice it to say, Max Scherzer really didn’t have it this time. He was able to dance around danger for five innings, but the Orioles are hot right now, and you can’t get away with that against a hot team forever. He threw plenty of strikes, but he had problems putting guys away, outside of a span of batters in the fourth and fifth innings. Twelve hits is the most he’s given up all season, and that includes his pre-Toledo struggles. Meanwhile, the offense couldn’t get anything going against Jeremy Guthrie. Guthrie fell behind a lot, actually, and they still couldn’t get good swings off him. They did mount a rally in the bottom of the eighth, scoring three runs, but the deficit was too much to overcome, I guess. Peralta was the big offense highlight with two hits including a 2-run double. Don Kelly had the other RBI.

The series and the homestand concludes today. Justin Verlander is coming off a spectacular performance against the White Sox (which I didn’t see). He hasn’t faced the Orioles yet this year. He’s had some difficulty with them in the past, most recently at Comerica Park last year where he gave up five runs early but stayed in the game and settled down from there. He is not immune to Luke Scott, either. Just a word of warning. Meanwhile, the Orioles are starting Chris Tillman, who has a very high earned run average but that’s inflated because of two really bad starts he’s made. Apparently he’s one of their more highly thought of prospects. He nearly no-hit the Texas Rangers back in July. Looking at his game logs, his tendency is to follow up a good outing with a poor one. He had a good outing in his last start, so let’s hope that pattern holds true.