masn-baseballs-orioles.jpgOrioles manager Buck Showalter didn’t want to use three of his relievers today and needed starter Wade Miley, fresh off the disabled list, to pitch into the later innings.
He didn’t need a combined 11 walks from his staff or a four-run ninth inning by the Yankees that handed the Orioles their first loss, 7-3, before an announced crowd of 42,487 at Camden Yards.
The Orioles still won the series and are 4-1 heading into their latest off-day. But they ended their first homestand on a…

Orioles manager Buck Showalter didn’t want to use three of his relievers today and needed starter Wade Miley, fresh off the disabled list, to pitch into the later innings.

He didn’t need a combined 11 walks from his staff or a four-run ninth inning by the Yankees that handed the Orioles their first loss, 7-3, before an announced crowd of 42,487 at Camden Yards.

The Orioles still won the series and are 4-1 heading into their latest off-day. But they ended their first homestand on a disappointing note, with Miley walking seven batters in five scoreless innings and Darren O’Day taking the loss after surrendering the four runs in the ninth and walking three batters in two-thirds of an inning.

Showalter-With-Fungo-Sidebar.jpg“They had four or five, didn’t they? That’s a lot of walks,” said Showalter, who avoided Zach Britton, Brad Brach and Oliver Drake today.

“Wade had a little trouble with gripping the ball. I’m sure (CC) Sabathia had some of it, but that’s not an excuse I’m sure he would use. That’s one of his fortes is his command, so that will get better.

“That’s one of the things we’re constantly talking about, doing something that helps the pitchers this time of the year grip the ball. You can tell both guys were struggling with it. But the humidity will pick up some and we’ll wait again to do something about it.”

The Orioles’ bullpen hadn’t allowed a run in 16 2/3 innings. The streak ended with Ronald Torreyes’ two-run triple off Tyler Wilson in the sixth. Aaron Judge hit a leadoff home run off Mychal Givens in the eighth and O’Day labored in the ninth.

“He’s struggling a little bit to find his step early on,” Showalter said of O’Day. “He had that flu and set him back. He’ll work his way through it. He’ll be fine. Just barely missing, and a guy with his approach and repertoire depends on that and getting some counts in his favor and expanding the zone. I was talking to some of the guys with the video after and you all saw it. He was barely missing.

“Physically, arm-wise he feels fine, as far as I know, but I think he’s still fighting through some of that flu. Anybody who’s had the strain that’s going around, there’s remnants there for a long time. It’s tough. But we knew coming into the game that we weren’t going to use Britton or Brach or Drake, so we knew there were going to be some need out of the bullpen. We were hoping that Wade could get a little further into the game.

“It’s not like we were running out people today who can’t do that job. Tyler was a pitch away and I feel good that after five games that we’ve gotten into the flow a little bit. We’ll seek their level, which is pretty good as we go forward.

“I think this road trip, they get a day off tomorrow, so that means Brad and Zach and Oliver get two days off. That’s what we wanted to do today going into the game. It takes some strong constitution not to use those guys. They’ve all got a job to do for us to be as good as we’re capable of being. You’re not going to get a seven, eight, nine inning start every night.”

O’Day had never walked three batters in a major league game.

“Over-adjusted on some pitches, and you put three guys on base, bad things are usually going to happen,” he said. “I gave up a couple of hits, they got some runs. It just wasn’t a good outing. It was pretty bad.”

Miley allowed only one hit, Aaron Hicks’ two-out single in the fifth, but the seven walks jump off the page. They also caused his pitch count to rise to 100.

“I’m not going to say he made pitches when he had to, but his stuff was fine,” Showalter said. “Where he was a week or two ago, he was fighting this stuff that Darren’s had and really about 10 or 12 of our guys. We may have been more fortunate than some other (team), but knock on wood, we still may get hit again with it.

“It’s one of the challenges of playing in the big leagues. When one guy gets it, a lot of people are going to get something. We’re in such close quarters, as many precautions as you take. It’s uncharacteristic of Wade, but a tribute to him that he came out of the game 3-0. I’ll take that.”

Showalter was asked whether he felt “fortunate” that the Orioles won two of three games despite the heavy bullpen use.

“I don’t know about fortunate,” he said. “We use them to win baseball games. That’s what we did. But at some point you have to say that’s enough because you’re going to pay that piper if you run out Brach and Britton.

“Other guys are capable of doing the job. Mike’s capable, he just hung a breaking ball to Judge, but he made some good pitches. I got (Vidal) Nuño finally in the game. I wanted to do that before we left on this trip. So we’re positioned to go forward. We had a really good homestand and we’ll take this show on the road.”