O's game blog: O's starters struggle with pitch efficiency

When it comes to pitch efficiency, the Orioles have some improvements to make. On Saturday, Wei-Yin Chen threw 24, 22 and 20 pitches over his first three innings. He only gave up one run in that time, so it's not like he was getting hit much there. That is simply too many pitches, especially early in a start. It's not a formula to pitch deep in the game. All year, the Orioles have just five starts of seven innings or more. Here is a ranking of the O's starters from least to most pitches thrown per inning. It is not a pretty picture: 16.9 - Bud Norris 17.6 - Chris Tillman 17.7 - Wei-Yin Chen and Miguel Gonzalez 18.2 - Ubaldo Jimenez If you do the math, no O's starter right now can get through six innings on fewer than 100 pitches. In total pitches thrown this year, the Orioles rank No. 9 in the American League and frankly you would think it would be worse. But that is just total pitches and some teams have played more games than others. As play begins today, the Orioles are tied for last in the majors with just nine quality starts: 9 - Orioles, Twins, Diamondbacks 10 - Rays 11 - Rangers By the way, the Orioles are 7-2 when they get a quality start. So yeah, they're important. They need more. There's some great analysis for you. The O's starters' ERA right now is 4.42, which is tied for 10th in the AL. Their overall team ERA of 4.24 ranks eighth in the AL. Today in the series finale at Minnesota, Gonzalez (1-2, 5.19 ERA) faces Phil Hughes (2-1, 5.14 ERA). Gonzalez had an ERA of 9.64 over his first two starts and has a 2.70 ERA over his last three starts. Meanwhile, the O's have not hit much in this series with just four runs on 16 hits. Twins starters began this series with an ERA of 6.04 on the season. But Ricky Nolasco and Kevin Correia have pitched to an ERA of 2.25 in this series. A few quick notes: If you didn't notice the AL league leaders today, the Orioles' Matt Wieters is leading the league in batting average at .354. Wieters also has a .986 OPS. He is batting .419 with six multi-hit games over his past seven games. From New York today, CC Sabathia is already out of the game as Tampa Bay has a 5-1 lead on the Yankees in the fifth inning. Sabathia gave up 10 hits and five runs over 3 2/3 innings and his ERA is now 5.75. He has allowed four runs or more in five of his seven 2014 starts. A New York loss and O's win today would put the Orioles back into first place. The O's offense in the first two games of this series: 16-for-68 (.235) with four runs and they've gone 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position.