Baltimore Orioles: Pathetic Showing Against the Detroit Tigers

The O’s jumped out to a big lead tonight, courtesy of a five-run first inning.  Of course, vaunted cavalry leader Chris Tillman went right ahead and gave three of them back before recording an out in the bottom of the inning, before settling down for a period.

Naturally, though, he wouldn’t leave the game without first stripping himself of any opportunity to get his first big league win, allowing the Tigers to knot the game at 5-5 before finishing his final inning of work, the sixth.

Tillman’s final line:  6 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 5 K, 3 BB, 3 WP

All in all, not terrible, and an improvement over his debut, but the three wild pitches really hurt the kid tonight.  Once he was able to harness the curve, he was showing some flashes of brilliance.

It wasn’t enough for the O’s to stop the now four-game losing skid.  Chalk that up to the fact that, after exploding for five runs out of the gate, they managed all of three hits the rest of the game.

Danys Baez looked poised to at least send the game to extras, getting two easy outs in the bottom of the ninth, then getting ahead of some dude named Clete, who hit a walkoff HR, 1-2. 

Maybe it was better this way, having saved the O’s “EXHAUSTED” (seriously, Gary Thorne, tell us again how tired they are) bullpen any more strenuous work. 

Chances are they’ll need to be ready for Tuesday, when cavalry member No. 2 makes his MLB debut.

Games like tonight’s make it pretty damn tough to get excited for anything, even the debut of the organizations No. 1 (now that Wieters is up) prospect. 

Nonetheless, I’m sure I’ll be watching (and grimacing) tomorrow night when Brian Matusz takes the hill. 

How about you?

Football season can’t get here soon enough.