Showalter speaks after 8-4 Game 1 loss

Left-hander T.J. McFarland, optioned to Triple-A Norfolk this morning to create room for infielder Paul Janish on the 25-man roster, has been "recalled" and will serve as 26th man for Game 2 of the doubleheader against the Athletics.

McFarland will be sent down after the final out.

The Orioles can hope only for a split of the doubleheader. Breaking even after some bad breaks in Game 1.

Mike Wright allowed 10 hits in five-plus innings, but not many balls were hit hard in an 8-4 loss. It's a small consolation prize after being charged with five runs to leave his ERA at 5.52 in six starts.

The Athletics kept finding the holes. They kept taking advantage of the shift. They singled out Wright.

Josh Reddick's RBI double in the fifth was the only extra-base hit off Wright, who threw 97 pitches before Dylan Bundy replaced him.

"I don't know if I've been involved in a game with more tough luck by the pitcher," said manager Buck Showalter. "I thought it might have been Ubaldo (Jimenez) the last time out. But they're hits. You hit them where people don't play. I'm hoping we'll have some of that good fortune in the second game."

Were the A's just going with the pitch while collecting a bunch of opposite-field hits?

"Not really," Showalter replied. "I thought they were trying to pull it and it just went off the end of the bat. It wasn't intentional, I'll tell you that.

"You can analyze how they got on base or you can talk about what happened afterward. Mike, I thought he made a lot of good pitches. You could tell he was a little frustrated by the balls that were falling in. Hopefully, he's got some good luck coming his way. They weren't kind to him today."

Showalter is fine with Wright displaying his emotions on the mound.

"I don't want a bunch of robots," he said. "Didn't affect the way he pitched. I thought he pitched well. If you just take the context of what actually happened rather than the runs that scored as a result of it. Mike, I don't want to try to shape them all to be ... If that's who you are and how you feel, as long as it doesn't affect the way you pitch, I'm OK with that.

"We get a lot of things like that. Some of them are up the runway where you can't see them. Mike's OK with you letting you see them."

Both inherited runners scored off Bundy, the first on Matt Wieters' passed ball. Bundy also was charged with a run in the sixth and Marcus Semien hit a two-run homer off Brian Matusz in the eighth.

Matusz walked Yonder Alonso to start the inning and Semien drove a ball deep into the left field seats. Reddick singled with two outs.

Matusz has allowed four runs and six hits, with five walks and one strikeout, in 3 1/3 innings over five appearances since coming off disabled list.

"You try to trust him," Showalter said. "He's got a lot of innings, we stretched him out, did a lot of things to try to get him ... I was hoping he'd be a little crisper when he got back, but he hasn't found it yet. We hope he does soon because he can be a valuable guy."

The Orioles scored three times in the ninth on singles by Nolan Reimold, Jonathan Schoop and Joey Rickard and a two-run double by Pedro Alvarez.

Rickard singled twice, walked and had an RBI. Manny Machado doubled and singled. Reimold reached base three times on an error, walk and single.

Schoop is batting .313 during a nine-game hitting streak. Alvarez has four hits - three for extra bases - and five RBIs in his last 13 at-bats since April 30.

Oakland left-hander Rich Hill allowed one hit through the fifth before the Orioles finally got to him in the sixth. The curveball remains his best pitch.

"It's one of those that comes out of the hand, I don't want to say loopy, but he's got real late finish. That's unusual," Showalter said. "Like we talked about before the game, it's a late-finish curveball. We knew what he was going to do. That's why he's, I think he was fourth or fifth in baseball in strikeouts per nine innings, which is hard to do in the American League. He was as advertised, like we saw last year."