David Hernandez takes a hard luck loss, his 2nd.
I thought Hernandez looked the best he has since his short time with the Orioles yesterday. He can still do better, but if he can pitch like that every time out he’ll be alright. He has a nice easy delivery and it looks like he could really dial it up if he wanted to. Definitely has closer stuff if it comes to that. He made one mistake, which was crushed for a homerun by Adam Dunn that bounced before hitting the warehouse. He had some bad luck in the 6th when Adam Jones made a perfect throw to home which should have been the 3rd out, but Matt Wieters dropped the ball and the run scored. Chris Ray’s struggles continue. He got the last out of the 6th after relieving Hernandez, but served up a solo homerun in the 7th. Mark Hendrickson came in for Ray after that and pitched 1.2 innings, giving up a run in the process. Danys Baez pitched a scoreless 9th.
The other part of Hernandez’ bad luck was the lack of run support, which occured mostly from more boneheaded plays on the basepaths. The Orioles had the leadoff batter on in each of the first 4 innings, but could only manage one run in that time span. That came in the 2nd when Nolan Riemold led off with a walk, Luke Scott doubled (his 8th), and Oscar Salazar singled Riemold in. Then, in that same inning, Luke Scott got doubled off after Matt Wieters grounded out to first base. Scott got caught between third and home and was tagged out in a run down. He should’ve been standing on third and we would’ve had another chance to score. Our other 2 runs came in the 8th when Robert Andino led off the inning with his 5th double. Ty Wiggington singled him to third. Nick Markakis then lifted a sacrifice fly to make it 5-2. Aubrey Huff rips a ball into the outfield which scores Wiggington, but Huff is thrown out at 2nd trying to stretch it into a double. It was obvious he wasn’t going to make it from the second he turned first. If he would’ve stayed at first a homerun could’ve tied the game up, but that ended the inning instead. The baserunning on this team is horrendous and I don’t know who should be held accountable, but its happening way too much and way too often.
Player of the game: David Hernandez (5.2 IP, 8 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 3 K, L (1-2) (4.19 ERA))
The division rival Red Sox come into town tonight. They’ve got Jon Lester (6-6, 4.68) going against our own Jason Berken (1-4, 6.32).
