Four of the last five Orioles games have ended with the losing team being shut out. The Orioles are 2-2 in those games. The Birds pitching staff is on a five-game roll: * The team ERA is 1.20 with 26 hits allowed over 45 innings. * The starters' ERA is 1.09 with five consecutive quality starts, a season-high. * The bullpen ERA is 1.50 with four hits allowed in 12 innings. Today, Bud Norris (5-5, 3.94 ERA) faces R.A. Dickey (6-4, 4.20 ERA) as we enjoy day baseball on a beautiful afternoon at...

Orioles manager Buck Showalter revealed his rotation for the series against the Rays that begins Monday at Tropicana Field, and it includes Miguel Gonzalez and Kevin Gausman. Wei-Yin Chen is set to pitch the opener, with Gonzalez and Gausman to follow. However, Gonzalez could be pushed back to Wednesday if he's needed in the bullpen Sunday against the Blue Jays. Today's game will dictate whether the Orioles need to activate Gonzalez from the disabled list on Sunday. Otherwise, they can...

Is Manny Machado's bat beginning to heat up? After a five-game stretch where he went 0-for-17, Machado is 4-for-7 with two doubles the last two games. He had three hits last night. He has been moved back to the second spot in the batting order for today's game. When asked if his bat is starting to get going after last night, Machado was honest to say he needs to see more evidence. "No, not yet. Not yet," he said. "Just because I got three hits doesn't mean anything. Just a good day....

After spending three days batting seventh, Manny Machado is back up to second in the Orioles lineup for this afternoon's game against the Blue Jays. The Orioles have Delmon Young at designated hitter, Nelson Cruz in left, Ryan Flaherty at second and Nick Hundley at catcher as they look to get the upper hand in their four-game series with the Blue Jays. Bud Norris is on the mound five days after pitching eight scoreless innings against the Red Sox, aiming to make it two strong starts in a...

Two losses in a row for the Nationals? Not concerned. This road trip has still been a rousing success. Travel from San Francisco to St. Louis and then back to the diamond did not result in a win thanks to the outstanding pitching of Lance Lynn. The Cardinals right-hander has given up an important postseason home run to the Nats in a relief role, but has done a great job against them as a starter. OK, I got that call a couple of weeks ago on Nats Insider (every Sunday 90 minutes prior to...

ST. LOUIS - Sixteen days ago, on May 29, Jordan Zimmermann woke up the owner of a 4.07 ERA. Not awful by any means, but not the type of number we expect to see next to Zimmermann's name on a stat sheet. He had just gotten a no-decision in a Nationals loss to the Marlins the previous night, allowing four runs (three earned) on eight hits over just five innings. It was his third start in six outings that went shorter than six innings. To that point, Zimmermann had a 1.46 WHIP, and had notched...

After Bud Norris pitched eight scoreless innings Monday night against Boston, a lot of the postgame talk was how effective the right-hander's changeup was that night. Norris gave up just three hits in that win. After he gave up a leadoff single to start the game, he retired the next 13 Red Sox hitters. He was rolling. Even though Norris estimates he threw just 12 or 15 changeups out of 98 pitches, the pitch gives him another weapon in his arsenal. "It is something I've always worked on,"...

We had an unusual occurrence last night at Camden Yards. Nick Markakis didn't get a hit. We also had a rain delay, which has become as common as finding peanut shells under the seats. You have a better chance of seeing a bull roaming the streets of Baltimore than a game played without rain. And I wouldn't steer you wrong. Sorry if I'm milking this story. Markakis still needs two more hits to tie Ken Singleton for sixth place on the Orioles' all-time list with 1,455. Here's the top...

ST. LOUIS - Jordan Zimmermann threw a 76-pitch complete game tonight, the fewest pitches thrown by a Nationals pitcher in a regulation complete game in team history. He allowed one run on three hits. He walked just one batter and struck out five. Yet, Zimmermann goes down as the losing pitcher tonight, after Lance Lynn and Trevor Rosenthal combined to blank the Nats on just two hits. This game lasted just 2 hours, 3 minutes thanks to the duel gems thrown by Zimmermann and Lynn. Zimmermann's...

After pitching to an ERA of 7.04 over his last five starts and coming off an outing in which he got just seven outs, Ubaldo Jimenez felt like he took a step forward tonight. "Yeah, I had a really tough game before this one so this is a good sign," he said after the Orioles' 4-0 loss. "I was able to be there for the team and forget about my last start. "Was able to hang in there for the team and at least get a quality start. I still had a lot of walks and still need to work on that. But I...