Kevin Gausman struggles again and some notes from the farm

The Orioles ended the first half with two wins. They had a chance to start the second half with an improbable win last night. But for the 2017 Orioles, each time it looks like something good might happen, it usually doesn't.

And last night the club's rally from 8-0 down to win was not completed. They came back from 8-0 down to tie but Addison Russell's homer in the ninth off Brad Brach gave the Cubs a 9-8 victory Friday night at Camden Yards. More frustration for a team and its fans.

And yes, it must be truly frustrating for Orioles hitters to have to climb out of so many early holes this year created by poor starting pitching. They were behind 8-0 in the third inning last night.

Mark Trumbo's two-run homer in the last of the eighth briefly tied the game 8-8. Trumbo was asked if the hitters have to resist a temptation to try and do too much when they fall behind 8-0 like last night.

"I mean, the problem is you have to do a lot. You get three or four runs and you still have to double that to get back in some of these games. You know, it really tests the willpower a little bit," he said.

No doubt.

The O's rotation ERA for the year is up to 5.87 after right-hander Kevin Gausman gave up eight runs over three innings. How has Gausman gone from a pitcher with an ERA of 3.61 last year (which was 3.10 in the second half) to an ERA of 6.39 now?

Gausman recorded 18 quality starts in 30 outings last year. He has recorded five quality starts in 20 outings this year. Last year he allowed five or more runs six times. He has done that this season eight times already.

Gausman has put together back-to-back quality starts one time all season. Last night he faced 17 batters and gave up a career-worst four home runs. After the game he said he was a two-pitch pitcher out there. Usually armed with at least two offspeed pitches, a breaking ball and a fastball, I asked Gausman why that was so last night. Did he just not use all his pitches or were they not all working well enough to get use?

"Both," he said. "You know, I didn't have a feel....had an okay feel for my breaking ball. Didn't have a feel for my split. So I had to throw fastball-changeup and my fastball location wasn't very good either. So, you know, when you are a starting pitcher and they are just looking for two pitches, they can pretty much just kind of sit and wait for their pitch."

Tough night and tough year for the Orioles right-hander, of which so much more was expected. He had a recent two-start stretch where he threw two scoreless starts over 12 1/3 combined innings. But now, over his last two starts, he has allowed 16 hits and 14 runs (13 earned) over seven innings with outings of four and three innings.

The 2017 Orioles just can't seem to build much momentum from one game or series to the next and get consistently poor starting pitching. That script that played out so much in the first half was on display to start the second half last night at Camden Yards.

Delmarva's new record: The Single-A Delmarva Shorebirds lost to Lexington 7-6 Friday night in a 21-inning game. The contest began Thursday night and then was suspended at 1:07 a.m. on Friday morning and resumed around 6 p.m. last night in the 21st inning. That is when Lexington got a homer in the top half of the inning and out of a jam in the bottom half to get the victory.

The game ends as the longest in Delmarva Shorebirds history at 21 innings. Time-wise, it finished at 6 hours and 7 minutes which is six minutes shy of a 6:13, 19-inning game against Piedmont on July 24, 2000. The first 20 innings took 5:51 on Thursday night going into Friday morning. The resumption took only 16 minutes. A total of 624 pitches were thrown to 171 batters.

It goes down as the minor leagues' longest game in 2017 so far, besting a 20-inning showdown between Boise and Eugene in the Northwest League on July 4. It's the longest a minor league game has gone since July 5, 2015, when Florida State League foes Lakeland and Dunedin went 21 frames. The game finishes one inning shy of tying the longest in South Atlantic League history. Lakewood beat Hagerstown 8-7 in 22 innings on May 7, 2006.

The two teams were scheduled to play their regularly scheduled game following the completion of the suspended game. But a rainstorm hit and that game was rained out.

Double-A Bowie (49-42) picked up a big win at Altoona, 5-4 and they lead the West division of the Eastern League now by two games over the Curve. Aderlin Rodriguez hit his 14th homer for Bowie and outfielder Austin Hays hit his fourth with the Baysox and his 20th on the year. Hays also made a sliding catch for the game's last out to put an end to an Altoona rally. Bowie is 8-1 against the Curve for the season.

Triple-A Norfolk beat Durham 5-4 with a walk-off win in the 10th inning. Drew Dosch started the winning rally with a double, advanced to third on a groundout and scored on a wild pitch for the Tides' eighth walk-off win. Paul Janish hit a two-run homer for Norfolk.

Single-A Frederick beat Buies Creek 6-2 to snap a franchise-long 14-game road losing streak. Right-hander Cristian Alvarado threw a career-high eight innings in the victory. Alvarado (4-8) eclipsed his previous career-high of seven innings. For the night, he allowed two runs (one earned) and scattered eight hits. He walked one and struck out five while throwing 94 pitches.