Hunter Harvey sizes up his 2020 season, plus other notes

No doubt the Orioles view right-hander Hunter Harvey as a valuable pitcher late in games in their bullpen both this year and beyond. But they also know they have to try to keep him healthy. He was out with a right forearm strain for more than half of this shortened season and was not activated until Aug. 30. The Orioles had already played 32 games.

Harvey was called up in mid-August last year. If you look at his stats in 2019 and now for this season, he threw 6 1/3 innings then and now. But Harvey himself, during a Zoom interview yesterday, noted the big difference in strikeouts. He fanned 11 batters last year for a strikeout rate of 15.6 per nine innings. He has fanned just three batters this season for a rate of 4.3 per nine.

"I don't think I'm at my best right now," he said. "I would like to punch more guys out than I am. My stuff just isn't clicking like it was last year. But it's something we're working on. I'm trying to get it there. It's going to click at any time and we'll be good to go.

"You know, this year has been a little bit different. Been kind of stop-go all year, and then the forearm stuff was a little setback. Just been stop and go. Last year when we began it was kind of smooth all year, had a good flow of things and everything was working right. This year, trying to get all the kinks out and finish strong."

Harvey, who had Tommy John surgery in July 2016, went 1-0 with a 1.42 ERA last year. This season he is 0-2 with a 2.84 ERA. The Orioles are still not allowing him to pitch on back-to-back days. So, after throwing a scoreless seventh inning in the win over the Braves Wednesday, he was held out of last night's doubleheader loss to Tampa Bay.

Harvey said he sees real solid potential in the O's bullpen and some youth on the way on the farm.

"We've got some good young talent coming, and there is some of it here. Kind of just all around, too. You look at our starters with (Keegan) Akin and (Dean) Kremer and how they've been pitching, and (Ryan) Mountcastle, (Austin) Hays, DJ (Stewart), Cedric (Mullins). It's a bright future, and I think we have more in our system that is going to help out a lot. It's going to be fun."

After this disjointed season that he's had, and a shortened 60-game season for the team, Harvey said he's not certain yet what his offseason will look like in the ramp up to 2021.

"That's a good question. Because we really don't know yet," he said. "I'm going to end this year with who knows how many outings we have left. It is just so much different to even ... it's tough to think how we'll go about this offseason. It's just, I guess, another challenge we'll try to overcome, and we'll see what happens."

Double dip loss: The Orioles didn't get enough hitting in Game 1 or enough pitching in Game 2 and they lost a doubleheader to the Tampa Bay Rays. They fell by scores of 3-1 and 10-6 and are now 22-29 with nine games to go. The O's would need to go 8-1 to get to the .500 mark.

Kremer allowed just one run in five innings in the opener and has a 1.69 ERA through three big league starts. If you take Kremer's three starts, four by Akin, the last two good ones by John Means and Monday's seven-inning outing by Jorge López, you get an ERA of 1.61 over those 10 starts.

Through that outing by Kremer, the O's had gotten nine starts in their last 13 games of one earned run or none.

In the nightcap, lefty Bruce Zimmermann allowed two homers and five runs over three innings plus one batter in his major league debut. It was exciting that another young pitcher made his way to the mound, and it had to be an exciting night for the Baltimorean. He left two pitches up that got hit out to score four of the five runs against him. I look forward to seeing more of Zimmermann

85 + 15 = 💯 pic.twitter.com/5bNTU0BM1Q

-- Baltimore Orioles 😷 (@Orioles) September 18, 2020