A look at the rotation recently, plus notes on Castro, Hess and more

TORONTO - The Orioles' starting rotation has had a wild ride the last turn through. On Saturday, Alex Cobb pitched a complete game, allowing two runs at Cleveland on 100 pitches. Yesterday, David Hess went seven innings, allowing three hits and one run at Toronto.

But in between, the trio of Yefry Ramírez, Andrew Cashner and Dylan Bundy allowed 19 runs in 13 innings. Ramírez has allowed 15 walks and 20 earned runs in 14 2/3 innings in his past four starts. Bundy has allowed 21 earned runs in 14 1/3 his past three starts. His ERA is 9.08 his past eight starts and his 33 homers allowed leads the majors.

The Orioles rotation has had its moments showing promise this year, but the rotation ERA is at 5.40 for the season and that ranks only ahead of the Rangers' 5.43 in the American League. The Orioles were last in rotation ERA in 2017 at 5.70.

But Hess was a real bright spot on Wednesday, with fastballs and sliders accounting for 80 of his 90 pitches. He and catcher Austin Wynns had a strong game plan, one that worked with pitches low in the zone often but sometimes with elevated fastballs for strikeouts. Hess fanned a career-high seven.

After the game at Rogers Centre, manager Buck Showalter threw some props to Wynns for calling a good game.

"One thing catchers at this level have to do, they have to have a memory. (They have to remember the) sequence they used the last at-bat with a guy, since the hitters up here have the ability to make an adjustment to what you are doing. To have the ability to go through the order multiple times you've got to be able to give them different looks. Everybody up here has a weakness, and you have to exploit it and know when they are trying to make the adjustment to it and go somewhere else," Showalter said.

The game got away from the Orioles and right-hander Miguel Castro during his outing in the last of the eighth. All five batters Castro faced reached and the Blue Jays turned a 1-0 lead into a 6-0 game. He gave up three hits, two walks and five runs, and threw three wild pitches.

Castro is at 69 2/3 innings now. He had thrown 66 1/3 last season when he seemed to hit a wall in September with a 7.04 ERA. He pitched well last August, but this year in August his ERA is now 13.50. He's allowed 12 earned runs and eight walks over eight innings.

"I try to keep in mind, I think everybody should, this is the youngest pitcher on our team," Showalter said. "And he's done some really good things and he's got some promise. You know, two steps forward and one step back. Today was a tough one for him. There are some things I feel like is going on with him that you can't do much about. I mean sometimes you feel great physically, but sometimes your knife gets a little dull."

Toronto completed a 10-0 record versus the Orioles at Rogers Centre with Sunday's win. They swept a four-game series from the Orioles in June and took three-game series sweeps in July and August. The Orioles scored just 28 runs in that ballpark this season. They scored three runs or fewer in seven of the 10 Rogers Centre games. The Orioles were outhomered in this series eight to two. They scored just five runs in three games in Toronto after scoring just five runs in three games at Cleveland to start the road trip.

Showalter talked about the O's going 0-for-Toronto.

"We're the victim of that. Obviously, they play well against us and we haven't. We had two hits (Wednesday). The story for me starts and ends with that, other than David's good outing. We had two hits. If you get two hits you're not going to beat anybody," the skipper said.

Trey Mancini provided his take on the winless year in Toronto: "Not winning a game here in Toronto this year isn't fun. You try to put your best foot forward the next day, but hopefully we can turn the tide here and put some wins together because we still have a talented group in here that has the capability of finishing the season strong. We didn't play to our potential at all here this year. It's kind of a tough stat to wrap your head around, and not something to be proud of."

The Orioles offense, which was humming along for a while coming out of the All-Star break, produced just 10 runs and a .181 batting averaging during a 1-5 road trip.

Kendrys Morales homered off Hess in the last of the seventh Wednesday to break the 0-0 tie. Morales has now homered in four consecutive games for the first time in his career. He went 7-for-12 with four homers and seven RBIs in the series.

The Orioles are now on a pace to finish with a record of 47-115. The 1962 Mets hold the modern-era (since 1900) record for most losses in one year, going 40-120.

After today's off-day, the Orioles host the New York Yankees for four games over three days starting Friday night. While the Birds have gone just 1-12 versus Toronto and 2-14 against Boston, they are 6-6 against the Yankees in 2018.

There was news off the field yesterday. The 2019 schedule was released, click here for more on that. The O's got some good news on Hunter Harvey, click here for that story.