After rough road trip, O's head home looking for a spark, runs and wins

DETROIT – As the Orioles offense continues to struggle and the team can’t seem to find a spark or any answers right now to turn it, the Orioles are probably still secure to make the playoffs.

Probably.

But each loss makes it harder to win a second straight American League East title and each loss gives Kansas City the chance to gain ground on the Orioles for the top AL wild card spot. If the season ended today, the Orioles would host the Royals in that best two-of-three series. But a few more losses could send the O’s on the road for that.

The O’s Adley Rutschman believes the Orioles can still do great things and said so after Sunday's game. But it’s getting harder to believe that when the team has now lost three series in a row at such a critical time. They went 1-2 each versus Tampa Bay, Boston and Detroit.

Rutschman, whose two-run homer yesterday accounted for the only O's runs in a 4-2 loss, was asked if it was hard to keep the faith and stay upbeat with the losses mounting?

"No. No. Our guys are resilient. They always have been,” he said. “This is a group of high-character individuals. Baseball is a tough game. Sometimes effort doesn’t equate to more success, especially when it comes to hitting. There’s no lack of effort or resiliency from our guys. There’s no lack of faith. Our guy's trust in each other and trust in our process."

But the numbers just don’t look good. The Orioles scored six runs on 16 hits, going 3-for-16 with runners in scoring position at Detroit. They scored 17 runs in the six games of the 2-4 road trip, batting .201 with a .648 team OPS.

In the last 10 games, in going 3-7, the Orioles have scored just 21 runs. In that span they have a team batting line of .193/.266/.326/.592. They have scored three runs or less eight times and two or less six times in those 10 games.

“We’ve just got to get going offensively,” said manager Brandon Hyde Sunday and after quite a few games recently. “We got a two-run home run late in the game. We’re not stringing together many hits. When we’re having opportunities, we’re not cashing them in. We had a couple of opportunities early and didn’t cross them. So, tough to be perfect on the mound right now. We’ve got to start scoring more runs.”

The Orioles went a combined 8-for-42 with runners in scoring position on the road trip. They went 1-for-8 Sunday and 0-for-5 in the first three innings when they had a real chance to get and build an early lead. But they could not yet again.

“At times we try to get too big (with RISP),” said Hyde. “At times we have inexperience. We’re not using the whole field. We hit a lot of balls at the second baseman today. He was very active. We’ve got to do a better job with better at-bats with runners in scoring position.”

The Orioles have been pitching pretty well lately, especially their starting pitchers. The staff had a 4.21 ERA on the road trip and O’s pitchers have given up 36 runs the past nine games.

O’s starting pitchers have an ERA of 1.42 the last five games and 2.33 the past nine.

Lefty Cade Povich provided a decent start Sunday allowing two runs in five innings on Riley Greene’s second-inning home run.

The young pitcher is getting solid experience pitching in big games down the stretch.

"I think honestly, every game I’ve been able to pitch I’ve been able to learn something, whether it’s gone really well or hasn’t gone necessarily the way I wanted to. Continue to learn. Pile up a bunch of things I’ve been able to experience. Things that have gone well, things that have gone bad. Be able to carry on to the next start and next season," said Povich. 

Experience for young players is a nice bonus right now. But more importantly the Orioles need runs and wins and in a hurry. 

Leave it to Beavers: Double-A Bowie's season ended Sunday but not for every player. The Orioles are moving outfield prospect Dylan Beavers from Bowie to Triple-A Norfolk for the final week of the Triple-A season starting tomorrow.

Ranked as the club's No. 6 prospect by MLBPipeline.com and No. 7 via Baseball America, Beavers is one of two players in the Eastern League with at least 15 homers and at least 30 stolen bases and one of four players to do so in all of Double-A.

He played with Bowie all season. Over 119 games he hit .241/.343/.413/.756 with 19 doubles, five triples, 15 homers, 67 runs, 31 steals and 50 RBIs.

MASNSports.com yesterday was first to report Beavers' promotion.

Erie scored twice in the 10th to beat Bowie on the season's final day. The Baysox ended the season going 62-75 overall and 30-39 in the second half.

Bowie's Creed Willems went 3-for-5 with two RBIs in the loss. The Orioles' No. 22 prospect went 10-for-21 in the series with a homer and eight RBIs.

In Norfolk's win at Durham Sunday, O's reliever Danny Coulombe threw a scoreless inning for the Tides. He has thrown two scoreless innings for Norfolk on a rehab assignment that should send him back soon to the Orioles.