Dylan Bundy pitches tonight, searching for answers and results

TORONTO - When Orioles right-hander Dylan Bundy takes the mound tonight at Toronto's Rogers Centre he will try to get his season - one that once looked very promising - turned back around.

Bundy began the year with an ERA of 1.42 through five starts. In June his ERA was 1.98 for the month and 3.75 for the year as June ended. But that ERA has been on a steady climb upward lately and Bundy's homer rate has gone up again.

In seven starts since the calender turned to July, he is 1-4 with an ERA of 8.33. He's allowed 12 homers among 49 hits in 35 2/3 innings.

But Bundy can look back at games from early this year or June and see mostly positive outings. I asked him yesterday if he's done that and compared those outings to these recent games where he has struggled?

"Yeah, you look at it and everything's the same, so what are you going to do now," said Bundy. "Next question. It all goes back to you get away with (poor) pitches sometimes and sometimes you can't. It seems like I haven't been able to lately. You don't want to get erratic and leave pitches over the plate. Mechanically everything is the same and for the most part everything looks the same on the video. Just need to keep the ball down and hit the glove."

It's one thing to struggle. It's another to not quite be sure exactly why and Bundy seemed to indicate that may be the situation during a pregame interview on Monday at Rogers Centre.

"It ain't fun. That's for sure. Just have to go out there and get better I guess," he said simply.

When Bundy struggled in the past, what did he use and draw on to get out of a pitcher's slump?

"You just continue to work in the bullpen and look at video," he said. "See what I've done in the past and what worked. Try to take that into the game. All you can do is keep trying to execute pitches. There are tons of things out there that could be the answer. It's commanding the baseball for the most part."

And is gaining strong command mostly about smoothing out mechanics that can get out of whack for any pitcher at times? Or are other issues involved?

"There can be little things mechanically that you don't notice until you see it on video," said Bundy. "It's not like you are changing everything with a new leg kick or windup. Just making little adjustments that you hope allows you to get the ball where you need to. You have games where you walk guys and a game where you don't walk anyone. So the command is fine. But you can't get away with pitches sometimes if you are not commanding like you know you can."

That word command keeps coming up after recent Bundy starts. It did as well yesterday before the game when manager Buck Showalter talked about Bundy's struggles.

"Command is more than just throwing a strike," the skipper said. "It's commanding the strikezone. He's always a start away from getting back into the groove. I know he's frustrated with it. It doesn't always show itself in pure walk totals. You can't be wild within the strikezone either. If you hang a curveball for a strike, it's going to end up where it ends up."

Bundy said he has analyzed his pitch mix as well. As the season has gone on he has thrown fewer four-seam fastballs and more two-seamers looking for sink and movement on the ball. He threw four-seamers on 54 percent of his pitches in June, 41 percent in July and 39 percent in August. He has thrown his two-seamer 21 percent of the time this month, the most for any single month. His slider usage has been steady around 25 percent all year but his curveball use is down from 10 and 11 percent early in the year to five percent this month.

Here is Bundy's take on his pitch mix: "We've looked at it and maybe throwing the curveball some more. But the curveball has to be there for you to throw it more. I think the main thing is the changeup. I need to be more consistent with that than in the past."

Bundy has allowed 10 homers his last five games and 12 in his past seven. He's allowed two homers or more in nine of his 23 starts. He has given up 30 homers this year to lead the majors.

So we'll see if he can make progress tonight. It was just a couple of weeks ago that he put together back-to-back quality starts versus Tampa Bay and Texas. But he's allowed at least five runs in five of his seven starts since July 1.

Other O's notes: So the Orioles lost again last night at Rogers Centre. The Toronto Blue Jays are 22-32 at home this year versus every team but the Orioles. They are 8-0 at home against Baltimore. The Orioles have lost four of those games by one run, one by two runs and three have gone extra innings. They get close and they get leads. But so far this year they always lose at Toronto. Two more chances to stop that. The Orioles are not always terrible in Toronto. They went 6-4 at Rogers Centre just last year.

Toronto's Kendrys Morales hit two homers and drove in a season-high four runs in last night's 5-3 win. Morales now has 22 career multi-homer games and he became the 150th player in MLB history with 22 or more.

Toronto has a 10-1 record on the season versus the Orioles, counting a 2-1 mark in Baltimore. The Blue Jays have five more wins against the Orioles than any other team.

The O's offense has mostly been humming along pretty well since the All-Star break. But they have scored just eight runs in going 1-3 on this trip and 24 runs in the last nine games.