The battle to get good pitching and hitting on the same night

Consistency is not the Orioles' strong point this season. Probably not shocking you with that announcement. Now that they have put together a few good starting pitching performances lately, they have seen the bats fall off. The Orioles starters have pitched to an ERA of 3.05 the last three games and 4.04 over the last six games. Nothing exceptional about that, but much better than the starters had been doing. Also, four times in the last six games an O's starter has pitched 6 2/3 innings or more. But after going through a four-game stretch where the Orioles scored 30 runs from last Saturday through Tuesday, the Orioles have scored just one run combined the past two games. As a team they are batting just .085 in those two games with five hits in 59 at-bats and just one extra-base hit, a Blake Davis double in the sixth last night. Some other stats coming out of Friday's loss: * The Orioles have hit just .111 (5-for-45) against the last two starters they have faced in Andrew Miller and Ervin Santana. They went 2-for-18 at-bat against Miller and 3-for-27 versus Santana. Santana had allowed nine runs in 3 2/3 in his last start against the Orioles, last Aug. 4, until giving up just one run in 7 2/3 last night. * Nick Markakis is 0-for-11 the last three games after his 11-game hitting streak ended on Tuesday. He went 14-for-44 (.318) during that streak. Since June 8, Markakis has had hitting streaks of 11 and 19 games. * The Angels entered last night's game with a 26-inning scoreless drought against Baltimore pitching dating to a series late last August on the West Coast. That streak reached 32 consecutive innings until Los Angeles broke through for two runs in the seventh last night to snap a 0-0 tie. * Since the All-Star break, the Angels are batting just .198 in eight games and averaging 3.4 runs per game. * A leftover from Wednesday's 4-0 loss to Boston. The Orioles drew six walks, but were still shutout in that game. The last time they drew as many as six walks without scoring a run was on April 22, 1999 in a 1-0 loss at Tampa Bay, in a game where they were issued seven walks. The Orioles have been shutout 19 times in franchise history when drawing six or more walks. The club record is eight walks, done twice, most recently on April 13, 1973 at Milwaukee. * Since May 21, J.J Hardy leads major league shorstops with 12 homers. But, over his last 18 games, Hardy is just 14-for-74 for an average of .189. It has lowered his average on the season from .305 to its current .273. * The Orioles starting pitchers the next two days (Brad Bergesen and Jeremy Guthrie) combined to go 3-0 with a 1.54 ERA in three starts against the Angels in 2010.