Young pitchers provide a lift for O's

Chris Tillman and Jake Arrieta provided something very important for the O's fans when they pitched so well over the final two games of the first half. No not wins, though those were nice, as was seeing the O's sweep four from a first-place team on the road. What they really provided was hope. Hope that the O's big three young pitchers, to include Brian Matusz, just might really turn out to be good and might become three-fifths of the O's pitching rotation that helps turn this franchise around. Nothing is more important in the game than pitching, especially starting pitching. If it is young pitching that is even better yet. Tillman's outing was much needed by him and he took a no-hitter into the seventh on Saturday night. Arrieta followed that up Sunday allowing just a run and he has pitched to an ERA of 2.41 over his last three starts. The cynics will insist that past O's pitchers were hyped and didn't live up to it. But I just think and am quite confident that the Big Three will live up to their previous top prospect rankings. We have seen the likes of Adam Loewen, Hayden Penn, Matt Riley, Daniel Cabrera and several others pass through showing promise. They didn't make it and in the end were not good Major League pitchers. This group is simply better this time. The team provided the fans a lift with the sweep in Texas. We'll soon find out if it was a fluke, a blip on the radar, or something bigger and a sign of a better second half. It surely can't get much worse, you would think and hope. Matusz, Arrieta and Tillman. Maybe this time, the Orioles actually really have something.