Ten games into the new season the Orioles are still looking for consistency

OK, through 10 games to start the 2014 season, the Orioles have not played overall crisp baseball. I think we are certainly going to see better.

So far, we've seen some baserunning mistakes and some mental errors. We saw a couple of physical miscues that were costly last night.

The Orioles had made just one error all year until Jonathan Schoop made two at third base within a span of three batters in the top of the fourth. He just made two bad throws. The O's had just 10 multi-error games all of last season.

Some fans were jumping on Schoop on social media last night, but keep in mind you don't ever win scoring no runs.

Chris Davis hit two deep drives to center, but is still looking for his first homer, and Adam Jones crushed a ball - or so it appeared - in the last of the fourth, but it was caught near the wall. That looked like a sure homer off the bat.

The Orioles are just 1-3 so far in series openers. Sure makes it tougher to win series when you lose the first game, but they did that at New York and now will try to turn the trick at home this weekend.

The best news to come out of last night was that Chris Tillman pitched another very strong game and did it on a night where both he and Buck Showalter said he didn't have his best stuff.

We are probably going to have to watch a lot of baseball this season before we see another pitcher suffer such a tough-luck loss. He gives up three singles, no earned runs and retired 14 of the last 15 batters he faced - and he lost.

Some other Tillman notes:

* He has allowed one earned run or less in each start this season. He has given up two earned runs in 21 1/3 innings on the season.

* He has pitched seven innings or more in eight of his last 11 starts since Aug. 24, posting a 2.74 ERA.

* Over his last 25 starts since last June 4, Tillman is 13-6 with an ERA of 3.12 and 17 quality starts.

* Opposing batters are hitting just .188 against him in 2014. Lefty batters are hitting .214 and right-handed batters .158. Opponents are 0-for-8 on the year when batting with runners in scoring position against Tillman and are 3-for-23 when batting with runners on base.

Over the last five games - two started by Tillman - the Orioles' team ERA is 2.86 to lower the ERA for the year from 5.86 to 4.34.

So we're 10 games into the long season and the Orioles are 4-6. They're still looking to hit their stride, eliminate some mistakes and put together an extended run of solid baseball.