A look at the struggling offense and the thriving bullpen

The Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Rays have good pitching, and the Orioles can attest to that. In losing four of five on this road trip to those two teams, the O's scored four runs total in those losses.

The offense that looked so special to start the season has slowed and it has really been for more than just a few games. Over the last nine games, the Orioles have scored four runs or less eight times and they've done that 10 times in the last 12 games.

It will not get any easier for the Orioles, who will face the Rays' Matt Moore tonight and a Chicago White Sox staff that began last night leading the American League in team ERA at 2.41 starting Thursday.

The Orioles have not hit many homers lately after getting off to such a good start with the longball. The Orioles hit 25 homers over the season's first 12 games. Now they have hit just two in the last seven games, none in the last three games and none over their last 34 innings.

The Orioles have scored just two runs the last three games and have scored just one run over their last 26 innings. Joey Rickard is 2-for-20 over his last five games and second baseman Jonathan Schoop is 2-for-30 over his past nine games, dropping his average from .314 to .200. They've had company in the recent lack of production on offense: Adam Jones is hitting just .212 and Chris Davis is at .217.

On the other hand, Mark Trumbo has an 11-game hitting streak. He is batting .349 (15-for-43) during that streak with three homers and 12 RBIs. Trumbo has had such a good season that his average has actually dropped during the hitting streak, from .406 to .373 on the year. Trumbo has no homers or RBIs at home this year, but has five homers and 17 RBIs on the road. Yet, again, this guy is having such a good year so far that his batting average is better at home (.414) than it is on the road (.348).

We'll see if tonight is the night the bats break out. It would be a great time to do it with Chicago coming to town tomorrow.

* He seems to always fly under the radar but reliever Brad Brach pitched another 1-2-3 eighth inning last night against Tampa Bay. Brach is 2-0 with an ERA of 0.73 in 10 games on the season. He has has given up just one run and four hits over 12 1/3 innings.

In the American League stats through Monday, Brach ranked third in the AL in reliever batting average against. Ryan Dull of Oakland was first at .086 and New York's Andrew Miller was second at .103. Brach has an ERA of .111, allowing just four hits in 36 at-bats. Then he reduced that to .103 by getting those outs last night. Right-handed batters are just 1-for-20 against Brach this year with 10 strikeouts.

* The Orioles bullpen as a whole has been pretty much as good as advertised so far. The bullpen ERA ranked second best in the majors going into last night's game at 1.78. Only the Chicago White Sox at 1.41 were better.

Brach, Zach Britton and Darren O'Day have a combined ERA of 0.67, allowing just two runs over 27 innings. Britton is 4-for-4 in save chances and O'Day has not given up a run yet.

Dylan Bundy has been pretty solid overall and the Orioles have gotten some clutch long-relief outings from pitchers like T.J. McFarland and Vance Worley.

* With his next win, O's manager Buck Showalter will tie former skipper Chuck Tanner for 30th on the all-time managerial wins list at 1,352.