Wade Miley takes fall for latest loss as frustration mounts

CHICAGO - As the losses mount, so does the frustration. That was clear tonight as O's starter Wade Miley pointed the finger at himself after the Orioles' 10-7 loss to the Chicago White Sox. And then he kept blaming himself.

Miley suffered his second straight short start, allowing six runs and six hits over 2 1/3 innings. By the end of the fourth, the Orioles had fallen into an 8-3 hole.

O's starters have an ERA of 15.56 the past six games. The team has lost 10 straight on the road. They rallied late tonight or they would have gotten blown out by a White Sox team that had lost nine of its past 11.

"I just sucked," Miley said after falling to 2-4 with a 3.97 ERA. "Simple as that. Everything I feel like I threw up there they put a barrel on. That is all there is to it. That game is on me. We've got to be better as a starting staff. We have to be better individually. That is not acceptable."

Can he pinpoint the issue?

"No, I can't pinpoint nothing. I sucked. That's it. That's the bottom line. I felt fine. They hit everything I threw. That is really all there is to say."

With the rotation pitching just 19 2/3 combined innings the past six games - and that includes a Dylan Bundy six-inning start - there is pressure on the starters right now to go deeper into games. They are not doing it.

"Sure there's pressure, but that is still not an excuse," Miley said. "We've got to go out there and do our jobs. We're not doing our jobs right now. It's embarrassing on all of us. I mean, it's definitely embarrassing for the starting staff. Other than Dylan Bundy. He's kind of holding us alive right now. We've got to pick him up, take some load off of him."

The O's Mark Trumbo was 2-for-4 and scored twice in the loss. He knows the O's can't call time out and get a day or two off to regroup. They have another game here tomorrow night, and will try to end their 10-game road losing streak then.

"You have to. This is going to end at some point," Trumbo said. "The sooner, the better. We're good ballplayers. We'll make the adjustment. We are going to have to go on a bit of a hot streak when we do get going. Lot of good ballclubs we are going up against and we can't lose too much ground."

Clearly, players are pressing right now because they want to win so badly.

"Yeah, it's a vicious cycle. You care. You try too hard. Eventually, you are able to relax a bit. You let your talent kind of come out. But when you are in the grind, you try to do too much, really, until you get the results you are looking for," Trumbo said.

Tonight the Orioles got an injured player back, as Manny Machado played for the first time since Wednesday. But they lost another. First baseman Chris Davis flied out to end a bases loaded threat in the third and then left the game with a right oblique strain.

Manager Buck Showalter said Davis is set for an MRI Tuesday morning at 9.

"I haven't had a chance to talk to him. I'm not going to go in and try to critique, exactly. The timing's not real good right now. It looks like an oblique, but we'll see. Those things usually don't end well, but we'll keep some positive thoughts about it. It's different than the one he had a couple years ago. It was on the other side."