LOS ANGELES - Though he was the clear winner of Friday night's vaunted showdown with Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer wasn't exactly in peak form for the Nationals. The reigning back-to-back National League Cy Young Award winner allowed only one run over six innings and emerged with the win in the Nats' 5-2 victory over Kershaw and the Dodgers, but he found himself pitching out of jams all night, with a heavy workload. Los Angeles put at least one runner in scoring position in five of...

LOS ANGELES - Ballplayers don't like to make a big deal out of any one individual game, especially the 20th game of a 162-game season. There are, however, exceptions, and Max Scherzer versus Clayton Kershaw certainly qualified. Only 12 times before in major league history had two pitchers with three Cy Young Awards apiece gone head to head, none in the last dozen years. So even the principal participants tonight were willing to concede they had some extra juice when they took the...

So the Orioles got a much-needed win over a good team with Friday's 3-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians. They ended an 11-game losing streak. Yes, I know they had lost their previous six games. But they had also lost their previous 11 games when scoring three runs or fewer. The Orioles were 1-11 on the year in such games. The only previous win was opening day, 3-2 over Minnesota. It had to be nice for the team and its fans to get a win and at least a small glimmer of hope that they might...

The left side of the infield has been a red-hot topic of conversation during the Orioles' frigid start to the 2018 season. Returning Manny Machado to shortstop upon his request, experimenting with Tim Beckham at third base, the plays that haven't been made while the losses piled up. Manager Buck Showalter said at FanFest that the change could be reversed in spring training, though the commitment made to Machado didn't figure to come with a March expiration date. The Orioles will stick with...

Trey Mancini underwent an MRI on his right knee tonight and his spot in the lineup and atop the order is in jeopardy for Saturday afternoon's game against the Indians. Mancini sustained a couple of "punctures" in the knee, according to manager Buck Showalter, and he's likely to receive stitches to close the wounds. Nothing more serious was included in the update following a 3-1 Orioles victory at Camden Yards. Yonder Alonso's fly ball into foul territory drove Mancini near the left field...

LOS ANGELES - How do you beat Clayton Kershaw, Davey Martinez was asked this afternoon. "You've got to be aggressive," the Nationals manager said. "He's going to be in the strike zone. So get a good pitch you can hit." How about three pitches to three batters? Is that aggressive enough? The Nats came out swinging tonight against the Dodgers' three-time Cy Young Award winner, and they were greatly rewarded for the no-holds-barred approach, scoring two runs in the top of the first to give...

Dylan Bundy handled the role of stopper tonight, which comes with the staff ace territory, and an offense that's now showing signs of life rose up in the middle innings to squash a losing streak. Bundy held the Indians to one run over six innings before his elevated pitch count forced manager Buck Showalter to call upon the bullpen, and the Orioles' skid stopped at six games with a 3-1 victory before an announced crowd of 20,004 at Camden Yards. Trey Mancini broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth...

LOS ANGELES - Anthony Rendon fouled a ball off his left big toe one week ago, in the fifth inning last Friday night at Nationals Park. He hasn't played since, and despite initial hope he'd be back for tonight's series opener against the Dodgers, he's not in the lineup. Which begs the question: Why, given the fact he's now been out seven days, was Rendon not placed on the 10-day disabled list? "He constantly kept saying he was getting better and better," manager Davey Martinez said. "And...

Buck Showalter's comments on Felipe Alou are on the back cover of "Alou: My Baseball Journey." When the Orioles skipper received an advance copy, he was kind enough to let me read it. I'm glad he did. This is an important book. This is a Jackie Robinson story from a different place in a different time. The baseball stories are here. Three Alou brothers playing in the same outfield in a major league game; Felipe Alou's assessments of the best players he saw at the different positions; his...

As the Orioles get reacquainted with their home surroundings tonight, they're also trying to end a six-game losing streak and regain their footing after absorbing a hard fall on the road. Asked earlier today what message he would send to his team and the fans, manager Buck Showalter replied that there was nothing to "sum up." It couldn't be done as a quick hit. "What does that mean? To sit here with two sentences? I think there's a lot more to it than that," he said. "It's frustrating,...