O's game blog: Verlander pitched to 6.00 ERA last year against the Orioles

We don't know how the Orioles will fare against 2011 American League Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander today, but they did pretty well against him last year. Verlander went 13-12 with an ERA of 3.46 last season and went 1-1 with a 6.00 ERA in two 2013 starts against the Orioles. On June 1 at Camden Yards, J.J. Hardy homered twice off the right-hander, who gave up three runs over seven innings in a 10-3 Tigers win. On June 18, Hardy and Adam Jones homered off Verlander as he gave up five runs and seven hits in five innings in a 5-2 O's win. Verlander does have a career mark of 8-1 and a 3.26 ERA over 13 starts against the Orioles. Here is an amazing stat from last season: Verlander started 34 times for the Tigers and Detroit went 14-20 in those games - six games under .500 when Verlander was on the mound. I'll post some notes in this blog during the game and please leave comments and any questions. Power outage: Yes, so far the Orioles have hit just two homers, both by Nelson Cruz. The team has now gone three games without a homer matching their longest drought from the 2013 season, when that happened a few times. But the 2013 Orioles never went four games in a row without a homer. Right now, Seattle leads the AL with eight and Toronto is next with seven. The only clubs with fewer than the Orioles' two is Texas with one while New York and Kansas City have yet to homer. The Orioles rank 14th right now in AL slugging percentage at .323. Taillon to undergo surgery: Man, another young pitcher will have to undergo Tommy John surgery. This time it is the Pirates' young prospect, Jameson Taillon. Read more here. Taillon was the second overall pick in the 2010 draft and the Orioles were watching closely, since they had the third pick. Pittsburgh also had interest in a high school shortstop named Manny Machado. It seemed that whichever of the two that Pittsburgh took, the Orioles would be happy to get the other. They loved Taillon, but also loved Machado. We now know how that ended. Really wish Taillon well. If you read that story, it follows Dylan Bundy's situation almost to a tee. Like Bundy, Taillon had discomfort late in March, they tried to rest and rehab it and now it leads to the surgery. O's tie it, Bowie still bashing: The Orioles got doubles from Adam Jones and Nelson Cruz in the sixth to tie the Tigers 1-1 as the pitchers' duel goes on in Detroit. At Double-A Bowie today, the Baysox scored four runs in the last of the first to lead Harrisburg 4-2. Should we start calling them the Bowie Bashers? The Baysox have scored 25 runs during their first 3-0 start since 2006 and added to that early on today. The best start ever by a Bowie team was 6-0 in 1994.