Baltimore Orioles look sleepy in matinee against Brewers

The Baltimore Orioles took an unfortunate loss against the Milwaukee Brewers in a matinee at Miller Park.

The Baltimore Orioles pitching wasn’t the only disappointment; the offense put up a lackluster show against a spot-starting Brewers pitcher who could barely hit 85 mph on his fastball.

In the first game of the inter-league series, the Brewers completely dominated by scoring eight runs in the first three innings.

The lonely highlight

The highlight for the Birds came in the top of the third. Ruben Tejada hit a single that was turned into a triple thanks to an error by Domingo Santana in right field. Then, long-relief pitcher Jimmy Yacabonis got his first at-bat. He grounded out to Jonathan Villar, but he still earned his first MLB RBI when Tejada scored from third.

Relief pitching took over

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Yacabonis entered the game in the second inning after Wade Miley was pulled for his pathetic performance. Prior to Yacabonis entering, Miley gave up seven hits and earned runs. He also had a pair of walks and strike outs. Yacabonis slowed the flow of Brewers crossing the plate, but he did allow three hits and one run in the third. He filled in nicely in long relief until the seventh when Darren O’Day came in for his typical one inning of work. He was followed by Donnie Hart and Richard Bleier. All three saw the minimum number of batters.

The ugly lowlight

Along with the ugly pitching in the first two innings, the Orioles made the Brewers look like base-running experts. In what turned into an odd scoring play, Brewers pitcher Brent Suter earned an unlikely RBI.

Here’s how it went down: Orlando Arcia was on first. Suter bunted. Arcia crossed second base but kept going to third because Manny Machado was out of position after charging the bunt. As Arcia got to third, he over-slid the base, got up, and kept going home as several Orioles got tangled up with coaches and umpires at third. Arcia saw a bit of a pickle with Welington Castillo, Machado, and Yacabonis, but he juked them and scored the Brewers’ eighth run.

In case you missed the live version, here is the MLB video of the unexpected series of plays:

During the show on MLB Network, the play-by-play duo joked about the Orioles looking like Keystone Cops and putting the gaff to the Benny Hill theme song “Yakety Sax”. Honestly, their take on the play was pretty accurate.

The Orioles managed to get six hits off of Brewers pitching, with four coming off of Suter. According to Fangraphs, his fastball velocity reaches a top speed of 86.7, yet he managed to get eight strikeouts with half of them coming from the top of the order.

Next: Jonathan Schoop is going to the All-Star Game

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day for the Birds as Ubaldo Jimenez faces Jimmy Nelson in a 4:10 start at Miller Park. After Jimenez’s last start, all eyes will be watching to see if he can go deep into the game. Nelson has had his best season ever with 50 strikeouts in June. Tomorrow’s game promises to be quite the pitching duel.