Hunter warns against placing more emphasis on series (O's down 5-2)

Orioles reliever Tommy Hunter offers more than innings and experience. He also brings perspective.

Players inside the clubhouse can do the math. They know the Red Sox lead them by three games in the American League East as they prepare for a four-game series at Camden Yards. But just how much importance should be placed on games this month compared to earlier in the season?

They all count.

Leave it to rookie Dylan Bundy, who's starting tonight, to drive home the point during a brief exchange with Hunter.

"I was like, 'That was a big win yesterday,' and he said, 'Isn't every win a big win at this point?' And I said, 'Well, it should be for the whole season,'" Hunter recalled.

"I think through the years, the more emphasis you put on the end of the season, the worse it is. To put emphasis on the end of the year more than what you did at the beginning of the year is kind of a joke, to be honest with you. I don't think we should approach it any different than what we did in April and May. You should play baseball hard every day and we come in every day and try to win every single game and, at the end of the year, you've just got to accept where you are sometimes.

"I don't think we try harder now than we did in May, so I think the emphasis on this being a must-win series is the same as May. This team needed to win series then. While I was in Cleveland, there were series that needed to be won then. I don't know. I just believe if you can go home and sleep well at night knowing you put your (butt) on the line that day and did what you should do, things are going to fall where they should.

"Just go out and play every day and hopefully you come out with a win, just like at the beginning of the year."

The Orioles started out 7-0 before losing to the Red Sox at Fenway Park. Would this series have the same feel, the same urgency, after an 0-7 start?

"It's a big series just for the fact that you've got so much on the line now, but if you put added pressure on something, you're going outside of your box, which we don't need at this point," Hunter said.

"We need everybody to do their job and we should win every game if everybody does their job. You've got to pitch and you've got to catch and you've got to hit the ball. So, if you go out and play the game and do those things, you've got a chance to roll the dice, as Buck (Showalter) likes to put it, in October."

Showalter referenced Captain Obvious today when asked whether it was safe to refer to these next four games as a big series. But he trusts his players to keep a "one-game-at-a-time" mentality.

"Our guys are very mature about it," he said. "There are so many things that they kind of lean on each other for because they live in an arena that they're one of the few who really understands what's going on. You control what you can control.

"It's a given that teams like Boston and Toronto and New York and all the other teams - Seattle, Detroit - you know it's not a level competitive field as far as the schedule. If you look at some of the scheduling, who people play in interleague and different stuff, the schedules are different. It's unlike any other sport. You're playing different competition and it is what it is. You don't like it? Then win your division and you won't have to worry about it.

"There's a penalty to be paid for not being good enough to make the playoffs, there's a penalty to be paid for not being good enough to win your division but get into the playoffs. That's the way it's designed. Teams like Boston, I'm sure in a lot of people's minds, are a given."

Showalter was effusive in his praise of the Red Sox.

"Look at them statistically and the things they were able to do in the offseason," he said. "On paper they're really good, and they're also real good on the field and they've got a great group of young men. I'm impressed with how they play. They've got a lot of things going for them.

"I know a lot of people over there and it's not by accident. It's one thing to have the ability to sign guys and trade for guys who cost a lot, but it's another thing to be able to make sure those are the right guys."

Bundy is working on five days' rest tonight for the third time this season. He's 3-0 with a 1.50 ERA, allowing only three earned runs in 18 innings. Opponents are batting .148.

Update: Mookie Betts did it again, hitting a two-run homer with two outs in the third to give Boston a 2-0 lead.

Rick Porcello has retired the first nine Orioles on only 22 pitches.

Update II: Porcello retired 11 in a row before drilling Manny Machado, who glared at him and initiated an exchange of words. Mark Trumbo followed with an RBI double, but Bundy gave back the run in the top of the fifth on Andrew Benintendi's leadoff double and Dustin Pedroia's RBI single.

David Ortiz hit a two-run homer onto the flag court to increase the lead to 5-1 in the fifth.

Update III: Adam Jones homered with two outs in the eighth to reduce the lead to 5-2.

Jones has 28 home runs this season. Porcello has 79 pitches through the eighth.