Taking a closer look at the O's starting pitching

After mentioning the Orioles rotation and quality starts in this morning's entry, here is an even closer look at how the club's starting staff is doing so far. Right now, the Orioles are tied for ninth in the American League in average innings pitched per start: 6.3 - Kansas City 6.2 - Los Angeles 6.1 - New York, Oakland 6.0 - Detroit 5.9 - Chicago, Boston, Texas 5.7 - Orioles, Minnesota 5.6 - Tampa Bay 5.5 - Cleveland, Toronto, Seattle, Houston Ranking O's starters by innings per start: 6.6 - Chris Tillman 6.1 - Bud Norris 5.5 - Wei-Yin Chen 5.3 - Ubaldo Jimenez 4.8 - Miguel Gonzalez At this point, the Orioles are actually pitching fewer innings per start this season than they did the last two years. The 2012 O's averaged 5.78 innings per start and the 2013 Orioles averaged 5.79 last year. Now it is just under that. The Orioles have just five quality starts through 18 games to rank 29th in MLB and last in the American League. Only Arizona has fewer with three. By contrast, Oakland leads the AL with 15 and Boston is next with 13. Right now, the O's starters' ERA of 4.57 ranks 12th in the AL. It trails the others in the AL East with Toronto at 3.82, New York at 4.03, Tampa Bay at 4.12 and Boston at 4.53. During their 1-4 start, O's starters had an ERA of 7.56. But over the next nine games the O's produced five quality starts to get that down to 4.35 and now, in recent days, it is back up to 4.57. Gonzalez, Tillman and Norris will take the ball the next three games in Toronto as the pursuit of quality starts and more starter innings continues for the Orioles.