Latest with Orioles pitching and roster

The Orioles can be thankful that the Twins don't play in their division. Nineteen games against them would be excruciating.

The sweep at Target Field over the weekend continued a trend that's seen the Twins win 12 straight games against the Orioles. Someone asked Dylan Bundy, who took the loss yesterday, what makes them so good.

"They don't miss pitches over the plate," he replied.

No one seems to be missing those pitches, and that's how a staff surrenders 71 home runs in 29 games. And you can count the cheapies on a couple of fingers.

It isn't necessarily pitch selection. It's command, it's location. It's hard to watch.

The 12 home runs hit by the Twins is a club record for a three-game series, surpassing the 11 they hit last week in Baltimore.

The Twins kept reaching the second deck and the Orioles were forced to shuffle their rotation and bullpen. Deck ... shuffle ... you see what I did there.

Shawn Armstrong will get an audition after the Orioles claimed him off waivers yesterday from the Mariners. Luis Ortiz was recalled and optioned yesterday.

Ortiz needs to start pitching a lot better to earn a promotion that lasts longer than six hours.

The 25-man roster has an opening that Armstrong can fill as soon as he reports to the club. Let's assume it happens later today, since Ortiz already is headed back to the Tides. He was brought to Minnesota only as insurance in case the Orioles needed a long man.

Armstrong gets a lot of swings and misses with his 93-94 mph four-seam fastball. He also throws a slider, which doesn't have much separation in velocity from his fastball, and a curveball.

David Hess is back in the rotation after being told that he'd work out of the bullpen while left-hander John Means started tonight in Chicago. Alex Cobb returned to the injured list with a lumbar strain and Hess regained starter status.

Cobb will be gone for a while. The Orioles need to get him healthy and probably send him on an injury rehab assignment before he's activated. This doesn't seem to be a 10-day deal.

The bullpen was pretty good yesterday, with scoreless innings from Branden Kline, Evan Phillips and Miguel Castro. Kline gave up a hit and walked a batter, but he also struck out two.

Kline has pitched in three of the last four days, and I'm wondering how much rest he's going to get before manager Brandon Hyde calls upon him again.

Hyde suggested again yesterday in his postgame MASN interview that the roster will continue to undergo changes throughout the season. Players will be rotated. Yesterday just happened to be the extreme.

Dropping catcher Jesús Sucre was a stunner for me. I understand that the Orioles wanted to promote Austin Wynns, but I didn't think Sucre would be gone before May.

He wasn't hitting, but did anyone think he'd flirt with .300?

Wynns and Pedro Severino will probably share the catching chores rather than one of them catching six days a week.

The Orioles scored four runs at Target Field, so pitching wasn't the entire issue. Now they head to Guaranteed Rate Field, where they split four games last summer.

Means is carrying a 1.74 ERA and 1.113 WHIP in 20 2/3 innings, and there's no reason to bounce him between the rotation and bullpen. Start him every five days as long as he doesn't come across as overmatched and in need of a reset, which we haven't seen at this point.

Means held the White Sox to one run over five innings in his last start, with one walk and six strikeouts in a 4-3 win at Camden Yards. The Orioles need him to function in cold weather. The forecast calls for temperatures in the 40s.