This is a photo of the good part of Miguel Gonzalez‘s start on Sunday against Oakland.  Things got worse. Mandatory Credit: Bob Stanton-USA TODAY Sports

Last year, the Orioles’ bullpen was among the best in the league.  While certainly the group has allowed the team to pull out more than one win in the young season, they look to be tiring already.  So why do these walks seem to be so contagious? Just as the strong performances last season of Jason Hammel, Wei-Yin Chen and Miguel Gonzalez seemed to rub off on one another, this season a need to overcompensate for each other’s less than stellar performances seems to be passing between them this year.

We all know that it’s a domino effect on any pitching staff — your ace has a bad outing, the manager is forced to use up the bullpen, so the number two starter feels more pressure to come up with a perfect performance.  They nibble the corners, overthrow the ball, and it turns into multiple walks.  Four days later, you’re back around to the ace, the bullpen is already wiped out and the pressure is even greater the second time around.

Time and again we see Oriole pitchers get ahead of hitters, only to get to a full count and walk the batter.  It’s a disturbing trend, and it needs to stop if the starters want to get their pitch counts down and save the bullpen some innings.  We have seen flashes of improvement from Hammel, and especially Chen in his last start against Oakland.  Though Miguel Gonzalez did ultimately surrender 4 runs in the sixth inning of his start on Sunday, up to that point he looked great.  One can safely assume that whatever broke down in that sixth inning is being addressed by Rick Adair.

It may take another week or so to right the ship so that we can avoid another situation like last Wednesday in Baltimore when Jim Johnson walked in the winning run against Toronto.  Or when Troy Patton walked a batter ahead of  Seth Smith‘s game tying home run on Sunday.  The bullpen is overworked right now, and it’s not quite May yet.    On the flip side, that leaves plenty of time for improvement!

Unfortunately for Chen, he was matched pretty much pitch-by-pitch by Oakland starter Tommy Milone. This was the kind of game where it was almost unfair that one guy had to lose. Oakland obtained Milone as a minor league prospect in the trade that sent Gio Gonzalez to the Washington Nationals last year. They brought him to the big leagues in 2012, and he thrived last year. 2013 has brought some struggles for Milone, however he probably turned in his best effort of the season last night in a losing effort.

Courtesy of Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports

This game was your classic pitchers duel, and it was scoreless until the top of the seventh. If this was a staring contest luckily for Chen and the O’s, Milone blinked first. J.J. Hardy led off the inning with a single, and was able to advance to second on Josh Reddick‘s error. With one out, designated hitter Steve Pearce came to the plate and promptly singled Hardy home. That went as an unearned run against Milone, however it also gave the Orioles a lead which would stand up.

Admittedly I was a bit surprised that Buck Showalter sent Chen back out to pitch the eighth inning. His pitch count wasn’t too high, however with such a slim lead it felt like the perfect time to turn things over to one of the best bullpens in baseball. Chen struggled a bit with two outs, but ultimately was able to record all three without incident. In total Chen threw 106 pitches, and admittedly Showalter probably saved the use of a reliever by sending him back out and getting him through eight. With the doubleheader last weekend, an extra-inning game (that required the use of multiple relievers) on Wednesday, and the trip out west Wednesday evening, the Oriole bullpen appears to be surprisingly rested. They only needed two relievers on Thursday, and neither of them worked last night. Therefore going into this afternoon’s game one would imagine that the entire bullpen is available for work.

Just for good measure, the Birds added two insurance runs in the top of the ninth. With the bases loaded and one down, Nate McLouth pinch-hit for Alexi Casilla and reached base on another Oakland error. Nick Markakis then hit a sac fly to left field, scoring Chris Dickerson (who had come on to pinch-run for Nolan Reimold). Buck Showalter had been warming up closer Jim Johnson as well as Brian Matusz in the pen, and had the O’s taken a lead of 4-0 or more Matusz probably would have come in to pitch the last of the ninth. However with the game at 3-0 and thus a save situation, Johnson entered the game and after allowing one base runner shut down Oakland in the ninth to close out another win.

I mentioned the Oriole pen above; Oakland’s bullpen is probably fairly gassed. They were somewhat in the same boat as the Orioles coming into the series in that they finished a series with Boston (at Fenway) and flew cross-country to come home. (In fact, their game in Boston was Wednesday night where as the O’s played Toronto in the afternoon.) However they were forced to use multiple relievers on Thursday night, and then another three relievers last night after Milone departed.

Birdland will get a respite from the late-night 10 PM starts today and tomorrow, as the Orioles will play Oakland on both days at 4 PM. We won’t know for sure until the lineups are published, but I would expect Taylor Teagarden to be behind the dish this afternoon given that it’s a day game after a night game. The Orioles will send Chris Tillman to the mound this afternoon, coming off of a great start against Toronto on Monday night in which he was non decisioned. Tillman will be opposed by A.J. Griffin of Oakland. If the Orioles can win either this afternoon or tomorrow, they’ll have won their first series at the Oakland Coliseum since July of 2007.

Courtesy of Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

They say that good pitching will always shut down good hitting, and that’s what happened in last night’s game. NY starter Hiroki Kuroda pitched an absolute gem. He wasn’t overpowering, yet he employed late movement that kept the Oriole hitters guessing. For the most part, Chen matched him pitch for pitch, save for the fifth inning. Chen’s line: 6 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 2 K. New York is a team that takes a lot of pitches, which is why Chen had 92 pitches thrown after six innings; the O’s swung at a lot of first pitches and made outs, which is why Kuroda pitched the full game and registered 113 pitches. The two stats that stick out at me on Chen’s line are the one walk and two strikeouts. Most people would look at that and say that only one walk is great but only two K’s isn’t so hot. However the fact is that Chen’s a fly ball pitcher, which granted poses it’s own set of issues as it is. However for the most part he was recording outs with those fly balls, and in theory that’s going to cut down on the number of pitches thrown. (In this case Chen was already deep in the count when the pop flies were hit.)

With New York already having a run home in the last of the fifth on a sac fly, Brett Gardener sent a deep shot towards the right field foul pole. Of course the last time the Orioles were at Yankee Stadium (the 2012 ALDS) there was some controversy with that foul pole, as Nate McLouth‘s shot was ruled foul. Television replays were inconclusive, however on a close up shot from TBS it did appear that the ball changed trajectory just a slight bit when it brushed by the foul pole. However Gardener left no doubt in the interpretation of anything, as his shot hit squarely off the pole for a two-run home run. I suppose that one might argue why not hit it solidly off the pole and not leave anything to interpretation as opposed to making it so that you can’t see with the naked eye if it hit or not.

I would say that was the ballgame, but it really wasn’t; the game was over in a sense when New York scored on the sac fly. That’s what happens when you don’t score any runs; the other team only needs one. However I would submit that a huge bright spot for the O’s in this game was reliever T.J. McFarland. McFarland pitched two innings of relief and gave up only one hit, one walk, and struck out three. McFarland also saved other arms from being summoned from the pen, giving the other guys some time off. The Orioles of course are off today and they begin a three-game set with Tampa at home on Tuesday, so everyone in the bullpen should be rested and ready to go at that time.