Chris Davis: "I'm just not picking up the ball"

HOUSTON - With three more strikeouts today, Orioles first baseman Chris Davis raised his season total to 74 in 47 games. Mark Reynolds, later a teammate in Baltimore, holds the major league record with 223 in 2009.

Davis isn't the sole issue with the Orioles, not when they've lost seven games in a row and 13 of their last 16. There's lots of blame to be spread around. But he's got the $161 million contract, a spot in the middle of the lineup and the scrutiny that comes with both of them.

The first two strikeouts were called by plate umpire Marty Foster, Davis again shaking his head and making the slow walk to the dugout. He went down swinging in the eighth inning after Mark Trumbo homered in an 8-4 loss to the Astros at Minute Maid Park.

Asked what he's seeing at the plate, Davis didn't let an opportunity get past him.

"I'm not seeing a whole lot," he said.

"I think the last game at home, I kind of started to feel a little bit better, and obviously get down here and just having to battle a number of things. I'm just not picking up the ball and that's going to make hitting pretty tough. I'm looking forward to getting home and getting back to an environment where I'm comfortable and where I've had a lot of success."

The Orioles begin a three-game series Monday afternoon against the first-place Yankees. Davis will arrive in a 3-for-36 slump in his last nine games that includes 20 strikeouts, 11 of them looking.

Davis has struck out at least three times in four of those games.

"I'm just not picking up the ball out of the pitcher's hand," he said. "I feel like I was not really recognizing the pitch until it was right in front of me, but at that point it's too late. Any time I'm taking that many called third strikes, something's going on, because I've never been one to really lay the bat on my shoulder.

"There's no lack of aggressiveness on my part going into my at-bat. I'm not going into it thinking I'm going to take a pitch here or there. I want to be aggressive in the strike zone, but not being able to pick up the ball until really late makes it really hard. So, I mean, we'll try some different things and see if we can get out of this."

Davis may be running out of ideas. He keeps showing up early to hit, taking swings off a tee set up inside the batting cage before facing anyone who's available to throw to him.

"I think it's just continuing to work," he said. "If anything else, it's the peace of mind of knowing I'm doing everything I could. As long as I've been playing, as long as I've been through rough stretches, that's always really worked for me, to continue to go out there and put in the reps, so that's what I'm going to keep doing."

As the losses pile up for the Orioles, their hold on third place becomes more tenuous.

"It's obviously a number of things," Davis said. "I feel like we always have, maybe not a skid quite like this long, but we always have these stretches during the season where we really can't put anything together. Usually it's a little bit later in the season, but I think if you're trying to find a positive, the fact that it's still early and the fact that we still have a lot of baseball to play, I think there's a lot to be said for that. We've just got to get out of it. There's no way around it.

The obvious question, of course, is: How does a team do it?

"If we had the answer, we'd probably put that into action a long time ago," Davis said. "It's just one of those things where one thing goes wrong and it kind of snowballs from there. Just try to stay positive and keep working and keep grinding it out."

Holding onto early leads - or any lead for that matter - would allow the Orioles to apply the brakes and end their skid. They were up 3-0 in the bottom of the second inning and behind 6-3 in the top of the third.

"I think any time you can score and get runs on the board early, it's obviously beneficial to not only your offense but your pitching, but for whatever reason we've struggled in the middle innings as an offense to really push runs across," Davis said.

"It's really one of those things where once we do get a few guys across home plate, I think it's going to start some momentum. I feel like we start pressing a little bit when we get into those situations, and you just can't play the game that way."

Here are some quotes from manager Buck Showalter and starter Alec Asher, who allowed those six runs in the second inning while throwing 42 pitches:

Showalter on Asher's second inning: "His command. The command that he showed us out of the bullpen just kind of left him. He had a good, clean inning, a shutdown, after we scored a couple and you could see watching how far he was missing his area he was trying to throw it to. Pretty simple. You throw a lot of balls in the center of the plate, they're going to end up where they ended up."

Showalter on Ubaldo Jiménez, who retired 16 of the last 18 batters: "He gave up a couple early and then shut it down after that. Really puts us in a good position health-wise going into tomorrow. That was something that probably will get unnoticed, but hopefully it's the start of him pitching some good baseball that we know he's capable of."

Showalter on how much another lost lead takes out of a team: "There's a part of every human being in those situations, how much is enough? You go through some of those periods. That's why I felt good after the first inning when he went out there and put a zero on the board, and then after that we just couldn't stem the tide. I think all the runs were scored in a couple of innings. You're playing day games after night games, there are little momentum things that really put you on your heels."

Showalter on Asher coming out after the second inning: "I'm sure that he certainly exerted himself a lot there, but he was equipped to go 90-95 pitches today. He isn't that far removed. The Astros didn't cooperate and his command didn't."

Showalter when asked whether Jimenez's outing could get him back in the rotation: "It's a good outing for him and hopefully it's a sign that he can get back on track down the road."

Showalter on how the team can pull out of this funk: "I don't want to over-simplify it, but I don't have to state the obvious to the guys in there. It pulls at you, and when the people you respect and know how good they are are struggling, you want to try to help. But it's one of those things where we get Jonesy (Adam Jones) back hopefully tomorrow and J.J. (Hardy) back and Zach (Britton) is making a lot of progress. But everybody's got issues like that all around baseball and you have to work through them.

"You've got to look at tomorrow's always the start of something good, but it's the big leagues. You're always going to have really good competition, whether it's the Astros, the Yankees, the Red Sox. That's what makes it so gratifying if you can pull it off."

Asher on what went wrong in the second: "Just made some mistakes and they made me pay for them."

Asher on the disappointment: "Very disappointing. I feel like I let my team down. I didn't do my job, but it's over now. There's nothing you can do about it. You just go back and try to get better and go from there."

Asher on the inning snowballing: "Yeah, I guess so. You start falling behind hitters like the caliber of that team and you're in trouble. Just one thing after another and you find yourself giving up a couple runs and it's tough to get out of it."

Asher on whether he felt like he had good stuff: "Yeah, I felt fine. First inning went well and then it happened. It's part of the game. Like I said, there's nothing you can do about it now and you just go forward from there and try to get better."

Asher on what the clubhouse is like with the losing streak: "I think everyone's a little frustrated. It's tough not to be. We're a really good team. We'll get through it. Every team hits a rough patch and we'd rather be hitting ours now than in the middle of the year. We'll get through it."