The Baltimore Orioles were the best team in the American League heading into their weekend series against the Yankees, but came out with their first series loss, licking their wombs. They’ll look to get back to their winning ways in a four game set at Fenway Park against a Boston Red Sox team they took two of three from a little more than a week ago.
This series will be contested from Monday, May 1, 2017 through Thursday May, 4, 2017 at Fenway Park in Boston. Monday's clash is being shown live on ESPN while the games on Tuesday and Thursday can be seen on the MLB Network.
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Pitching Matchups
The Orioles were hoping to get Chris Tillman back during this series, but the Baltimore ace will get one more rehab start before being activated. As a result, Tuesday’s starter for the Orioles remains unannounced, though Alec Asher is expected to get the nod.
Before that, the Orioles will turn to their current ace in Dylan Bundy to pitch against Rick Porcello in Monday’s series opener.
Porcello hasn’t exactly looked the part of a reigning Cy Young Award winner so far this season, but the sinkerballer is starting to look more like the dominant hurler from last year. His ball is back down in the zone and he’s allowed only two earned runs in his last two games, spanning 13.2 innings. Overall, he’s still just 1-3 with a 4.75 ERA. This’ll be his first start of the year against Baltimore, a team that he held to just 14 hits and no walks in three starts last year. That said, five of those 14 hits were home runs as he allowed eight runs over 23 innings.
As for Bundy, the young right-hander has looked every bit the part of the young phenom that the team touted back before his injury struggles. The young gun is 3-1 in his five starts with a 1.65 ERA and 0.980 WHIP in 32.2 innings.
He’s faced Boston twice already this year, going six and a third and allowing three runs in his first outing against them and holding them scoreless in seven is second time around.
For Tuesday, Asher will have the difficult task of matching up with Chris Sale. Asher looked good in his only start this year, but he’s been pitching some out of the pen since and hasn’t gotten consistent work. Sale has taken his game to another level in Boston. He’s one of the best pitchers in baseball right now and has been absolutely unhittable in his five starts with the Sox.
Sale is just 1-2 this year, but already is a 2.0 rWAR player in just a month. He’s pitching to a 1.19 ERA and 0.770 WHIP in 37.2 innings. More shockingly, he’s already struck out 52 batters. The Orioles are very prone to the strikeout and this could be a long night for the O’s bats.
The last two pitching matchups in this series are interesting as well. Kevin Gausman starts Wednesday. He looked a bit better in his last start though the numbers don’t exactly bear that out. Still, he was the team’s Opening Day starter and had a break out year last year. His stuff still plays up, he just needs to be a better job locating it. He’ll be countered by Drew Pomeranz who was a curveball machine last time out and that paid off for the southpaw. Pomeranz was an All-Star last year and, like Gausman, can easily shutdown the opposition if his stuff is working.
Lastly, the series finale will come down to two major question marks: Ubaldo Jimenez and Steven Wright.
Every once in a while Jimenez gives you a good start like he did a couple starts back against the Reds, but more often than not it’s a struggle for five innings until the O’s bullpen can take over. As for Wright, the Orioles destroyed him earlier this year when his knuckleball was flat. If that happens, he’s essentially a batting practice pitcher. If the knuckler is going, he can be a challenge for a power heavy team that can have problems waiting back on the dancing knuckleball.
Bullpen Breakdowns
The Orioles’ bullpen was supposed to be their biggest strength, along with their power. So far, this team has gotten pretty good starting pitching, hit-or-miss work out of the pen and enough offense to sit at 15-8 despite giving up nearly as many runs as they’ve scored overall.
There’s no doubt the Orioles miss Zach Britton. He’s on rehab and should be back soon, but without him, there’s a clear gap. Darren O’Day has been wild and hasn’t been a shutdown set up man and while Brad Brach has pitched very well save for blowing one three-run lead in New York, he’s only able to set up or close, he cannot do both.
Sure, Mychal Givens and Donnie Hart have been good in their respective roles, but both have limitations against the opposite side and have only really been an option for Buck Showalter in the last few innings when necessity dictates and not so much by choice.
O’Day and Britton are keys. This team either needs the former to start pitching like he did a couple years ago or the later to be healthy and the guy from last year; preferably both. The question is: can either happen in this series?
As for the Sox, the pen has been solid. They’ve already got eight saves heading into Sunday and a 2.31 collective ERA.
There have been concerns about getting to Craig Kimbrel without Tyler Thornburg healthy, but Matt Barnes before suspension and then Heath Hembree, Joe Kelly, Robby Scott and Ben Taylor have all pitched very well.
Undue Drama
Last week these two teams met in Baltimore and we saw a borderline slide by Manny Machado take out Dustin Pedroia. He missed a few games as a result, but came back for a game against New York and has been good to go for the Cubs series this weekend.
While he’s back healthy, the slide created some bad blood between these two already hated rivals. Reliever Matt Barnes proceeded to try and hit Machado as retaliation and nearly plunked the star in the head, earning himself a short suspension.
Publically these teams have indicated they feel this spat is behind them, but it’s hard to really know how these teams feel when the clubhouse doors are closed. It’s certain we’ll continue to see hard plays between these two teams and another aggressive play by either side could easily set things off again.
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