Wrapping up a 6-3 loss

ARLINGTON, Texas - How do you critique a start where the pitcher is victimized by the kind of misfortune that fell upon Orioles right-hander Chris Tillman?

"You can't," said Orioles manager Buck Showalter. "Just say that."

Tillman worked 5 1/3 innings tonight, the second Orioles starter to move past the fifth, but he was charged with six runs in a 6-3 loss to the Rangers.

The Rangers sent nine batters to the plate in the sixth, an inning that included Mitch Moreland's RBI bloop double on a ball that stayed in the air for a prolonged period and still fell inside the line. And Ian Desmond's broken-bat infield hit that scored another run as Chris Davis fielded the ball, Tillman ducked in anticipation of a throw home and nothing happened.

"Over the course of a season, those things kind of equal out," Showalter said. "He'll have some outings maybe not as crisp. I've been so impressed with how crisp he's been since first day of spring. Really the second outing of spring. And he's carrying this type of stuff, he's going to be a real contributor for us. Just not a whole lot you can do. He made good pitches and they hit them in places you can't defend.

"He's been good. He could have continued. It's just unfortunate the game just dictated that he was done. They didn't hit that many balls hard off him with the exception of (Adrian) Beltre and a couple others. He had as good a chance to win. It's pretty easy not to overthink that. It was just one of those nights where he didn't get the breaks he deserved."

Left fielder Joey Rickard and shortstop J.J. Hardy each ran a mile in pursuit of Moreland's ball.

"Moreland's a dead pull hitter and you've got him over in the 390 thing and you've got to run a couple football fields to get there," Showalter said. "It's probably the only ball he's hit there in his career."

The Orioles drove left-hander Cole Hamels from the game in the sixth, but they could have done more damage. They put runners on second and third with no outs in the fifth and didn't score, and they managed only one run in the sixth despite a leadoff walk and a one-out double by Matt Wieters and RBI single by Hardy.

"That's also why, I think he's won a Cy Young," Showalter said. "They bend but they don't break. That's why those guys are in such demand and the Rangers wanted him. That's what they do.

"The one that hurt Tilly was the broken bat one to first base, too. He makes a great pitch, and makes a great pitch to Moreland and doesn't get the return that normally you get. We can talk about some squandered opportunities, but I think it was more about what he was doing and not what we weren't doing."

Tillman said he made "OK" pitches. He was better than his final line, but he wasn't quite as sharp as he'd prefer.

"They weren't great pitches. They could have been better," said Tillman, who threw 86 pitches, including 53 for strikes. "The same swings I was getting all night, it was just hitting them at our guys as opposed to not hitting them at our guys. The pitches definitely could have been there and could have been a little bit better, but you can't defend the kind of stuff they did late in the game.

"That kind of stuff happens. You've got to continue making pitches. That's our job as starters, no matter what happens you've got to go out and make another pitch, make another pitch. I left some balls out in the middle of the plate that they hit hard late, too."

Ubaldo Jimenez is the only other starter to exceed five innings by working through the seventh on April 7. Tillman appeared on his way to getting that far before the wheels came off in the sixth.

"Personally, I felt like I made some decent pitches throughout," he said. "I feel like I had the stuff to get deep in that game, and contact-wise, I feel like it was a lot of soft contact to get deep in the game. Unfortunately, stuff happened there in that last inning. A bad pitch here, a bad pitch there, the game completely changed. I feel like all the momentum was on our side. It just kind of got away from us there."

Rickard never got to Moreland's ball and he isn't sure how it found the grass.

"Tilly was throwing pretty well to that point. That's just one of those things where it's hard to defend and they capitalized on it," he said.

"It's one of those things. It's perfectly placed. We have our reports on him and he beat us on that one."

Rickard thought he would catch up to it as he began his pursuit. Instead, Moreland had the third of six Rangers hits in the inning, the last off reliever Mychal Givens that scored another rrun.

"Right away, yeah," Rickard said. "You feel like you can catch everything. Maybe a better jump or something like that, I come up with it. It got me that time."

Adam Jones went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in his first start since April 6. He didn't want to talk about himself afterward as he wore an ice pack on his side.

"I'm fine," he said. "It was just a little bit of bad luck, man. Just some balls that just fell in down the line. Tillman threw a hell of a game. Just a little bit of bad luck. Just got to capitalize on the guys on third base. We had three or four opportunities to capitalize with a man on second base and less than two outs and we didn't get him in, but that's why you've got tomorrow.

"It doesn't matter about me, man. It's about the team, so keep moving forward as a team and keep getting better."

Showalter was going to check on Jones later in the night, but it appeared that the center fielder swung the bat without any discomfort. Nothing that was visible.

"He's going to hide it as much as he can if he wasn't, but he's going to be frank with us I'm going to go down a little bit later and see what ... It's more about tomorrow, I think, than tonight," Showalter said.

"I think he felt pretty good, all things considered. Should have had a base hit on the first one. Probably one of the keys to the game was all the defensive plays they made."

Hyun Soo Kim pinch-hit for Nolan Reimold, who doubled twice, and lined a single into right field with two outs in the ninth. What did Showalter see from Kim?

"I saw a base hit to right," he replied. "I thought he had a good at-bat. It's something I wanted to do. Give him another experience doing that. Trying to throw as many things at him as I can to get him in the flow that we all have to do at times to contribute."