It's been a tough two weeks for the Baltimore Orioles and we all know it. After a promising start to the season, there's been a lot of losing thanks to inconsistent pitching and a lack of offense. After the sweep by the Yankees this weekend, a lot of fans either on sports talk radio and various places online started to question the decisions of Orioles manager Buck Showalter. It's hard to rationalize, but there's a difference in the perception of a manager when they are either losing or...

Don't look now, but since going

While wondering exactly when Carl Crawford stopped being good ... There were plenty of things to like about last night's 4-1 win over the Red Sox, and we pretty much covered all of them over the course of the evening. I'll go back to that 11-pitch at-bat from Adam Jones in the second inning. He struck out, but he also seemed to get Clay Buchholz out of rhythm after the Boston right-hander had retired the first five batters on only nine pitches. You can see Jones maturing offensively....

The Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos provided most of the offense for the Nationals Tuesday against the New York Mets and continues to make a case to be the regular backstop for this team going forward. This case doesn't have to go to an arbitrator. The numbers don't lie. Ramos is now batting .378 which is 128 points better than the next offensive starter (Danny Espinosa .250) and well over 150 points better than Jayson Werth (.220) and Adam LaRoche (.219). On Tuesday, Ramos had one of...

Adam Jones talked about his 11-pitch at-bat against Clay Buchholz in the second inning. "That set the tone," he said. "Everybody was able to see everything that he threw and he really didn't fool a lot of guys. He's still good. He still held this team to four runs, but it was a lengthy at-bat. I wish it had a better result. "It's good to see us swinging the bats. You have Vladi. As soon as he got that last hit, I said, 'Don't let that man get hot.' He's the one guy that you do not...

Zach Britton became the fifth American League rookie since 1980 to win four games by the end of April. He set the Orioles' record for wins by a rookie starting pitcher in the season's first month. Zach Britton recaps his performance and his fourth win of the season "Obviously, I didn't know that," he said. "It's pretty special, obviously. The fact I'm here is awesome. I was expecting to be down in Norfolk, but I'm just trying to make the best of the opportunity, and I think I've...

If manager Buck Showalter had to pick out any flaws from Zach Britton's performance tonight, he'd focus on the rookie allowing Dustin Pedroia to easily steal third base in the fourth inning, and all the deep counts. That's about it. Buck Showalter analyzes Zach Britton's start following the O's 4-1 win "You'd like to see him be able to take that stuff over another inning or so, but I thought the bullpen was really good tonight, J.J. and Kevin," Showalter said. "And I've got to...

During the Red Sox' recent run of eight wins in nine games, the Sox starting pitchers were tremendous pitching to an ERA of 0.88 during that stretch. They had given up just six earned runs over 61 1/3 in the nine games. Tonight, Boston starter Clay Buchholz allowed four earned runs over 6 2/3 versus the Orioles. Buchholz entered with a career ERA of 2.98 against Baltimore and it went up to 3.26 tonight. Boston pitching gave up just five runs total in its four-game sweep of Los Angeles and...

Triple-A Norfolk third baseman Josh Bell left tonight's game in Indianapolis in the fifth inning with mild swelling in his left knee. He'll be reevaluated tomorrow. Nolan Reimold hit into a force play in the top of the fifth, and Bell injured his knee with a hard slide into second base. Blake Davis replaced him. Bell is batting .273 for the Tides. Vladimir Guerrero has three hits tonight to raise his average to .287. He just scored on Mark Reynolds' sacrifice fly after he singled and took...

The Red Sox put two more runners on base in the sixth, but Zach Britton retired Carl Crawford on a fly ball to center field on his 94th pitch of the night. Britton appears to be done. Jim Johnson is throwing with a purpose in the bullpen. Britton has four quality starts in five outings. He's held the Red Sox to one run and five hits, with two walks and two strikeouts. On the season, Britton has allowed 10 runs and 25 hits 31 2/3 innings. He's walked 12 and struck out 19. Johnson is...