O's game blog: Jayson Aquino makes first major league start

Proving that baseball can be hard - or even nearly impossible to predict - we can go back to the third inning Tuesday night when the Cincinnati Reds led the Orioles 9-3. Since that inning, O's pitchers have allowed one run over 33 innings.

They blanked the Reds over the last five innings of Tuesday's game and pitched a shutout the next night. Then they won in 10 innings Thursday. allowing one run. to end the road trip and followed that up with another shutout last night at home versus Boston.

After trailing 9-3 in three innings in one game, the combined score of their past three games is 6-1. They beat Cincinnati 2-0 and 2-1 and won 2-0 last night to end a six-game home losing streak versus Boston.

While the Orioles have scored just nine runs their past four games, they have gone 3-1 in those games. Since Kevin Gausman allowed eight runs in 2 2/3 innings on Tuesday, the last three O's starters have been outstanding. Ubaldo Jiménez, Wade Miley and Dylan Bundy have combined to pitch 22 2/3 innings and have given up just 10 hits and one run.

Bundy, last night's winning pitcher, is now 3-1 with an ERA of 1.37. His ERA ranks seventh in the American League. Teammate Wade Miley ranks 10th at 1.89.

The O's have moved up in the AL team pitching ranks:
* Orioles overall team ERA is sixth at 3.47.
* Orioles starting rotation ERA is fifth at 3.53.
* Orioles bullpen ERA is seventh at 3.35.

Left-hander Jayson Aquino tonight makes his fourth major league appearance and first as a starter when the Orioles and Boston play Game 2 of the series.

After a strong spring, Aquino began this year with Triple-A Norfolk, going 1-1 with an ERA of 4.00 in two starts. He allowed four runs in three innings in his first game versus Charlotte. Then he faced the same team last Friday and pitched six innings, allowing five hits and one run with no walks and eight strikeouts. He threw 90 pitches, 62 for strikes.

In spring training, Aquino posted a 1.20 ERA over 15 innings with a .185 batting average against. He pitched in three games in relief for the Orioles last season, making his major league debut on July 4 at Dodger Stadium. In 2 1/3 innings, he gave up one hit and no runs, and two of those appearances were in September and against Boston.

The Orioles acquired Aquino from St. Louis on April 7, 2016 for cash considerations. He was originally signed as an international amateur free out of the Dominican Republic by Colorado on July 2, 2009. Aquino was a top 30 prospect four times with the Rockies, peaking as their No. 9 prospect at the end of 2012.

Here is the scouting report from Baseball America on Aquino: "With Double-A Bowie (in 2016) he threw a fastball, a breaking ball that was a slurve-type pitch and a solid changeup. He pitched between 88-93 mph, sitting mostly 89 and 90. Aquino has a career 2.26 walk rate. He has a loose delivery and pitchability and varied the speed often on his fastball and above-average changeup, which he relied heavily on and that got some swings and misses. He would often pitch backwards and had a solid groundball rate. He went deep into starts for Bowie and one scout said he had a knack for both reading bats and getting out of jams. His ceiling is back-end starter."

The Orioles tonight face knuckleballer Steven Wright (1-1, 8.36 ERA). They blasted this pitcher for eight hits and eight runs over 1 1/3 innings on April 12 at Fenway Park. They went 8-for-12 with four homers in that short time as Trey Mancini, Jonathan Schoop, Adam Jones and Chris Davis went deep. In Wright's two other starts, he has allowed five earned runs over 12 2/3 innings against Detroit and Tampa Bay.

In three career starts at Camden Yards, Wright is 1-0 with a 1.84 ERA and .163 average against. He pitched a complete-game four-hitter with seven strikeouts last May 30.