A look at the Tillman-Wieters pairing and some notes on the offense

After a miserable game yesterday and an 11-4 loss at Cleveland, right-hander Chris Tillman (6-1, 2.61 ERA) will take the mound for the Orioles this afternoon.

If this game is like the rest of his starts this season, his catcher will be Matt Wieters. Wieters has caught every Tillman start this year, 10 of 10. He has also often caught Kevin Gausman. Caleb Joseph has caught a lot of Ubaldo Jimenez's starts, but Wieters caught two of the last three.

Wieters would certainly not take credit for Tillman's strong season, but the catcher and pitcher are kind of a team within a team. How they work together is very important. Right now they are working well together, so why change anything? Maybe today it becomes 11 for 11.

Last year, when Tillman struggled and pitched to an ERA of 4.99, his ERA was 4.88 with Wieters catching and 3.51 with Joseph. For his career, it is 3.92 with Wieters and 4.02 with Joseph.

You would probably never get Buck Showalter to say one of his pitchers has a regular catcher and he knows he has two really good defensive catchers at his disposal.

Wieters told me his take on this topic is easy: whatever is best for the team.

"I think both me and Caleb feel comfortable catching anybody," he said. "We've both had a lot of games catching all our pitchers. But it is something to where, I think we both look at it as, whatever we feel like the best way is to get a win is what we are going to do. If that turns into certain guys catching certain guys, that is fine with both of us. We both know the biggest job for a catcher is getting the most of their pitcher. Whatever that is going to be is what we are going to go with."

The Orioles are 8-2 in Tillman's 10 starts this year and he has recorded seven straight quality starts. In that span, he is 5-0 with a 1.94 ERA.

About the offense: After a five-game stretch where the Orioles scored three runs or less each game, they have plated six and four runs in the first two games in Cleveland. They have struck out 16 times in this series. A lot better than 52 times over three games.

Several Orioles may be breaking out somewhat on offense in Cleveland:

* Manny Machado is 5-for-8 with three doubles and an RBI.

* Mark Trumbo is 5-for-8 with two doubles, a homer and two RBIs.

* Adam Jones is 4-for-8 with a double and two RBIs.

* Jonathan Schoop is 3-for-8 with two RBIs.