The O's road woes and a take on Britton

The Orioles return home tonight to host Toronto after ending another losing and frustrating road trip. The Orioles won the first game of the three different series on the trip, then lost the other seven games to go 3-7 in Toronto, New York and Kansas City. Some other notes on the trip: *The Orioles scored 12 runs in the first game of the series at Toronto, then just five runs total over the next two games. They scored four in the first game at New York, then just eight over the next three contests. They scored eight in winning Tuesday at KC and six runs total in losing the past two nights. *The team batting average was .249 on the trip and the Orioles scored 43 runs, for a 4.3 run per game average. The team ERA was 5.20 on the trip and the starting pitcher ERA was 6.61. *Orioles' starting pitchers recorded just two quality starts in 10 games on the road and pitched six innings or more in just three of the games. *The Orioles have now lost 12 consecutive road series since mid May. They have lost 14 of their last 17 games on the road and are 17-37 on the season in road games. *Mark Reynolds now has 24 homers. The most by an Oriole third baseman is the 31 hit by Tony Batista in 2002. Reynolds next error will be his 22nd of the year, and that will tie Brooks Robinson (from 1958) for most errors in one season by an O's third sacker. Reynolds, though, has made just one error over his last 28 games. *Zach Britton took the loss last night giving up six runs (four earned) and 12 hits over 5 1/3 innings. Britton now is winless over his last seven starts and has just one win over his last 14 starts since May 1. His outing was by no means a good one, but it was improved and it looked like he took a step or two forward in this outing. I still think the Orioles made the right decision to keep Britton pitching in the majors after the outing at New York. Britton could have pitched in Triple-A last night and maybe put up six shutout innings. I still think he gained more by taking the mound in KC, even with giving up six runs. He needs to figure it out at the major league level right now. He needs to get more consistent sink back on his pitches and more command within the strike zone. Britton left a few pitches up last night, and the Royals hit some pitches hard in the first inning. Britton showed some poise last night and I think his confidence would have taken a bigger hit had the Orioles sent him right back to the minors after his outing at Yankee Stadium. I still expect him to turn this around and figure to see him with some outings soon that look more like when we saw from him earlier in the season.