Showalter not offering excuses for 14-3 loss

It would have been easy for manager Buck Showalter to refer back to yesterday's 17-inning game in Boston, and the harm it did to his bullpen, while dissecting tonight's 14-3 loss to the Rangers before 11,938 at Camden Yards. Easy, but unacceptable. Showalter didn't blame a carryover from the marathon win over the Red Sox for tonight's dismal showing. "I know that's a real easy area to go down, but I don't think anybody in our locker room would," Showalter said. "(Matt) Harrison pitched well. Their whole pitching staff is very deep. But that's not something our guys or I'm going to dwell on. It's part of what we do for a living. You get thrown some self-inflicted things that you have to deal with and nobody's going to feel sorry for you. Hopefully get a good night's rest and turn the page." Brian Matusz needs to start a new chapter. He turned in back-to-back quality starts, but was tagged with seven runs and 10 hits in five innings tonight. "Just command. He never really got into a rhythm," Showalter said. "They had a couple sequences where it looked like he was going to repeat quality pitches, but he never could string much together. That's a good right-handed hitting lineup, obviously. They squared up a lot of balls off him. Walks didn't help. Command was probably the biggest issue." So was Brandon Snyder, who homered, singled twice and drove in a career-high six runs. "I'm happy for him," Showalter said. "Not tonight, but he's a good young man and he's doing well and I'm happy for him." The one bright spot was Stu Pomeranz, who shut out the Rangers over three innings in his major league debut, which came at 27. "Stu picked up where he was," Showalter said. "I liked the way he handled himself. He had a lot of mound presence and attacked the strike zone. He hides it well, but you know there had to be a lot of emotion flowing around out there. I was real proud of him. That was probably the highlight for us. "It's good to see a guy carry over exactly what he's been doing. He was in camp with us for 27, 28 days, and I think being around that environment and being around the guys made it a pretty easy transition. He knew everybody. He's one of those guys who wasn't in big league camp but was in big league camp." It looked like Pomeranz was in his element tonight.