Holmes on Valdez's adjustments and more

To say the least, it's been a rough stretch for the Orioles pitching staff. They've allowed 77 runs during a 10-game losing streak. In May, as the club is 5-19, the staff ERA is 6.09.

The Orioles now rank 14th in the American League with an ERA of 5.00, last in rotation ERA at 5.39 and 12th in bullpen ERA at 4.52. The team ERA was 3.91 in early May.

Second year O's coach Darren Holmes, in his first year as assistant pitching coach to Chris Holt, is trying to keep his pitchers together and upbeat during a difficult time. One where he has had to had to forge on recently without Holt, away from the club for personal reasons.

"You know, the best thing about coaching when you have played at this level is you understand what they are going through," Holmes said via Zoom this afternoon. "And, we try to stay - we stay positive, we don't try to stay positive. Always try to bring a positive environment into them. You don't want to walk out with your head down, like, 'Oh, my god, we're never going to win again.' Because we know we are. So it's just keeping them positive.

"You know, keeping interaction with them and connecting with them every single day. Individually and together as a team. We talk about it. but you know what? At some point, this too shall pass. We have a good bullpen, we have a good pitching staff, we have some pretty good hitters and we're going to get back on track. It's just right now, we're in a little dead time. As positive as you can stay, just going out every several day and doing your job, obviously it's going to help the team."

Holmes said 36-year-old right-hander César Valdez, who had a 1.26 ERA in nine games last year and a 1.23 ERA in his first 14 games this year, now has to make some adjustments.

Valdez, who gave up three runs and got just one out last night at Chicago, has been struggling since May 11. In his last six games, he has allowed 15 hits and nine runs over four innings. That is an ERA of 20.25 and an opponent batting average of .556.

Has the league figured him out?

"It has. It has and he knows it," Holmes said. "We've talked about this. Matter of fact, me and Valdez had a great talk last night. What they are doing is - early on they didn't know him. He comes from odd (arm) angles. He mostly throws changeups with mixed in a couple of sliders here and there. And now they are on to that. They're making him get the ball up and they're not swinging - if it looks like it's mid-thigh, they are not swinging at it because they know it's going to be a ball.

"So we talked about some things we're going to do. We're probably going to incorporate the fastball a lot more because when he throws a fastball off of what he is doing it looks - he threw a fastball last night, surprised me. He threw a fastball last night in a 3-1 count, it looked like it was 97 mph. Compared to what is coming in in the low 70s, high 60s sometimes. There are definitely some things we are going to do to get him on track. To get him in a better spot. Not really with his delivery but with his arsenal."

Some nights, the pitchers have little margin for error and/or don't get a lot of run support. Last night, lefty Bruce Zimmermann went five innings and turned a 1-1 game over to the bullpen, which allowed four runs and lost 5-1. So more runs would be welcome some nights.

"You know, I haven't really talked to them about it, but from my experiences, yeah, it does add stress," Holmes said. "It really does. You want to keep your team in the game. You want to keep the game close to give us a chance to win. But when you are in kind of a skid like we are in right now, there is probably some more stress involved when they are out there as to keep it to the minimum as they can."

Holmes said he is doing what he can while Holt is away from the club.

"I mean, it's not really been a challenge. I've done this before when I was with Colorado," Holmes said. "So this is nothing new to me. Me and Holt are very much on the same (page) - we work in the same space at home. We're engaged with each other at all times. So if something happens, if I have to leave for any reason, Holt knows exactly what I do and he would take over and vice versa. It's been simple, normal for me really."