Jimenez, Joseph and Machado talk after O's loss to Toronto

After pitching to an ERA of 7.04 over his last five starts and coming off an outing in which he got just seven outs, Ubaldo Jimenez felt like he took a step forward tonight. "Yeah, I had a really tough game before this one so this is a good sign," he said after the Orioles' 4-0 loss. "I was able to be there for the team and forget about my last start. "Was able to hang in there for the team and at least get a quality start. I still had a lot of walks and still need to work on that. But I was OK." Jimenez gave up just three hits over six innings, but one was Juan Francisco's two-run homer in the second. Jimenez did walk five batters tonight, and he has walked 45 in 76 innings. "There were probably a couple of hitters where I was trying to be too fine with two strikes and that is where the walks came," he said. "Overall, I was pounding the strike zone. If you take away those five walks, I felt good because I was able to attack the strike zone." Did the right-hander make any changes or adjustments since he gave up six runs and five walks in just 2 1/3 innings on Sunday against Oakland? "Something that we worked on was trying to establish fastball command," Jimenez said. "I used my fastball down in the strike zone and was able to to do that for most of the game." Jimenez does remain winless at Camden Yards for the 2014 season. He is 0-6 with an ERA of 6.38 in seven games at home. "What can you do? The only thing I can do is go out there and try to do my best. One of these days it is going to come," he said. Catcher Caleb Joseph also felt that Jimenez took a step forward. "I thought he pitched really well," Joseph said. "He gave up just three hits. They got key hits. Gave us a quality start. He got hurt with one swing really. Probably a bad pitch call on my part. Probably should have gone inside there and I'll lose a little sleep over that tonight." Joseph got hit on the right hand by a Drew Hutchison pitch in the third inning and trainer Richie Bancells came out to take a look as the catcher stayed in the game. "It's fine," Joseph said. "It looked a lot worse than it was. It didn't hit me directly. It kind of more or less grazed me. I'm fine." Manny Machado was 1-for-20 over his last six games before tonight. He went 3-for-4 with a double and two singles this evening. He was disappointed that the O's wasted a good starting pitching performance. "Definitely," he said. "Ubaldo threw the ball really well today and it (stinks) that we couldn't get him enough runs out there and get a win. There will be days like that and hopefully he keeps throwing the ball well and our bats are going to be there. "We got a lot of hits, but not when we had runners in scoring position and that is what caused this loss. (Hutchison) threw the ball well, and they played great defense behind him." Machado tied his season-high with his three-hit night. It was his 19th career game with three or more hits. Is his offense coming around? "No, not yet. Not yet," he said. "Just because I got three hits doesn't mean anything. Just a good day. Hopefully I keep doing that and keep working on things."



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