David Hess states his case for 2019 rotation job

Barring offseason trades and/or something else unforseen, the Orioles are likely set with three starting pitchers for the 2019 season: Alex Cobb, Andrew Cashner and Dylan Bundy. With his performance in the final two months, right-hander David Hess has established himself in the hunt for one of the two remaining spots in next year's rotation.

For a rotation desperate for innings, Hess delivered last night. Against a 100-win defending World Series champion Houston team, Hess went seven last night. He gave the Orioles quantity and quality in the innings department, allowing three hits and one run on 91 pitches. He got a no-decision and finishes his season going 3-10 with a 4.88 ERA in 21 games.

Hess' ERA was 5.14 when Friday's game began and was 6.41 on Aug. 3. He made up ground nicely as the season went on. His past two starts came versus the playoff-bound Yankees and Astros and featured 12 innings in which he allowed seven hits and three runs. Impressive.

Said Adam Jones of Hess: "Awesome. Seven innings against a team like that, one run. A team that is one of the most potent in all of baseball. For him to hold them down - and they played a full lineup too. He did his thing. But the main part of what he did was strike one. You get ahead of hitters, you have that advantage, so I tip my cap to him tonight."

Hess knew it was big to provide seven innings. It was the longest outing by an O's starter since Cashner went seven Aug. 25 in the second game of a doubleheader against the Yankees.

"Absolutely," Hess said. "Any time you can eat up innings to save the bullpen, that is really important. Especially knowing we have two games (today). I think that's something that I really wanted to do tonight. To be able to do that for the team was really important."

Hess faced a good team but delivered a strong game, providing the Orioles with just their third quality start in the last 20 games.

"Yeah, it shows you when you go out and make pitches you can hang with the best of them. That is a great lineup. But we are capable just as much as they are. You look at where they were a few years ago and they are something we can look to going forward to kind of set as a role model to where we can get to that point as well," Hess said.

Over his last nine starts since Aug. 9, Hess pitched to a 3.24 ERA and had four quality starts. In 11 games since the All-Star break he has gone 1-5 with a 3.81 ERA and .244 batting average against.

"Confidence has been a big thing, you know, just picking the brains of the veteran guys," he said. "We made a couple of mechanical changes - nothing major, but just couple of tweaks here and there, and it really allowed me to execute pitches better. Throw them where I want to and be a little safer with the misses we have. The biggest thing is just continue to improve and grind it out each day."

More Orioles notes

* Mychal Givens pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning on 13 pitches. Givens is ending the year on a roll, allowing one run and one hit over his last 12 1/3 innings and 10 games. In the 38 at-bats in this span, Givens' has allowed an average of .026.

* The Orioles fall to 46-113 for the season, 27-51 at home, 6-50 when they fail to homer, 12-28 in one-run games, 0-4 against Houston and 6-24 versus the American League West.

* Houston right-hander Gerrit Cole allowed one run in six innings in a no-decision. He has 276 strikeouts for the year to rank third in the majors, but fanned just four last night, his lowest total of the 2018 season. Cole has now thrown more than 200 innings, joining teammates Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel. They are the first trio of Houston teammates to have pitched 200 innings each in the same year since 2005, when Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Roy Oswalt did so.

* Jones drove in his team-leading 63rd RBI for the first run of the game. He hit his team-leading 34th double in his second straight game with a two-bagger. That was his 594th extra-base hit as an Oriole, fifth most in team history.

* Outfielder Cedric Mullins has hit safely in 15 of 21 home games and is hitting .320 (24-for-75) at Oriole Park. He's hitting .284 (33-for-116) against right-handers, compared to .143 (6-for-42) against left-handers.