Eveland's assessment of himself today: "Not very good"

SARASOTA, Fla. - Orioles left-hander Dana Eveland was charged with only one earned run in two innings today. A run wouldn't have scored in the first if he gloved Ryan Sweeney's comebacker with two outs. He would have been spared two unearned runs in the second if Chris Davis made a better throw to second base. None of that mattered to Eveland, who allowed six hits and fell behind too many batters. He didn't try to put a positive spin on his outing, much to his credit. "Not very good," he said. "I threw way too many pitches and gave up too many hits. I felt pretty good, but obviously against this lineup, you can't really make too many mistakes, and I paid for pretty much every mistake I did make today. That's the difference between having a good outing and a bad one. They hit every mistake I made. "Leaving the ball over the middle of the plate. I got 0-2 on (Cody) Ross and couldn't make a pitch. It went to a full count, where I had to come back with a strike, and threw a decent pitch and he hit a ground ball through the hole." Dustin Pedroia's two-out double in the second scored the two unearned runs. "Pedroia, you just can't fall behind him, period," Eveland said. "He's such a good hitter, he can pretty much hit every spot on the plate. He covers the plate pretty well. I fell behind, 2-0, I threw a pretty good pitch to him and he hit it hard and then I fell behind 3-1 the second time and threw a bad pitch and he hit it harder. You obviously need to stay away from those counts with a guy like that." Eveland is out of options, so the Orioles will take a long look at him. "I would have liked to have done better, but I still feel like I'm throwing the ball OK," he said. "Couple hits to the first two batters I faced two outings in a row, and that's never a fun start. It's always tough to pitch in those situations. I just feel like I need to get a clean inning under my belt, and once I do that I'll start getting in a groove and get more work out of the windup. Both outings, I've hardly thrown out of the windup at all because they've been getting their hits, which is normal for me. I'm going to give up hits, but I'm normally pretty good at getting my double plays and keeping the ball on the ground. They're hitting the ball in the air too much right now, so I have to work on getting that sinker to work better." Eveland's disappointed that he didn't keep his pitch count down and make it to the third inning. "I pride myself on being able to pitch deep into games and keep my team in ballgames," he said. "I know I'm not going to go out there and throw no-hitters or anything crazy like that or strike out 15 guys, but I can pitch deep into ballgames because I do work pretty quick normally and get a lot of early soft contact. I've got to get better at that right now." Chris Tillman tossed three scoreless innings, allowing one hit and striking out one. I didn't see every radar reading, but he was at 93 mph on a few occasions. Today's game is a sellout - 8,316.