Zach Wilt: Birds bounce back from ejections, but still deal with ripple effects

There were many frustrating aspects to umpire Sam Holbrook's decision to eject Kevin Gausman in the bottom of the second during Wednesday night's Orioles-Red Sox game. For starters, Chris Sale threw behind Manny Machado the night before and got nothing more than a warning. Gausman got tossed for plunking Xander Bogaerts on a 77 mph breaking ball without either club receiving warnings from the crew. Who intentionally hits a guy with an off-speed pitch? Gausman's average fastball velocity, according to PITCHf/x, is 95 mph. Wouldn't he prefer to throw gas if he's trying to hit a guy?

On top of all of that, Matt Barnes, who threw a pitch at Machado's head on April 23, got four games for something Major League Baseball claims to take very seriously. He missed two percent of the season with that suspension and made it back in time to pitch against the Orioles on Wednesday.

You could argue - and argue I will - that Gausman's ejection, for a pitch that clearly wasn't intentional, hurts the Orioles more than anything that has happened to the Red Sox so far. Caleb Joseph described it perfectly after Game 3. "The reason that I got so upset is because yes, the in-game decision is very important, but there's ripples we're going to have to deal with for the next five, six, seven days," Joseph told the media after the game, according to MASNsports.com's Roch Kubatko. "We had to cover (seven) innings in the bullpen and that's huge. That can set a team back five or six days."

Joseph is exactly right. Holbrook's decision didn't just hurt the Orioles on Wednesday, when they ultimately lost 4-2 in Game 3 of their series against the Red Sox, it will impact them for days to come. The Orioles lost their starter before he ever recorded an out in the second inning. Gausman had averaged five innings per start in his previous six starts this season. He was coming off a six-inning effort against the Yankees on April 28, but let's say he would've given the Orioles five innings in Fenway. The Orioles had to cover four additional innings with their bullpen, and they did so by using Richard Bleier and Thursday's listed starter, Ubaldo Jiménez.

To cover for using Jiménez, the Orioles had to make a two roster moves on Thursday to support their overworked bullpen. Bleier and Alec Asher were optioned to Triple-A Norfolk, while Tyler Wilson and Gabriel Ynoa were recalled. Wilson got the start last night, his first of 2017, and came up big for the Birds with six solid innings, surrendering three earned runs. He retired 12 of the last 13 batters he faced. Prior to Wilson's spot start, the O's staff averaged 5 2/3 innings per game. So basically, Wilson helped pick up the slack from Gausman's early exit by going an extra out further than the average Orioles starter.

Wilson's timing was great, too, as Buck Showalter's club is currently on a stretch of 17 straight games without an off-day. They have ten more days to go before Monday, May 15, their next day off. An early exit by their starter on Wednesday couldn't have come at a more inopportune time.

In spite of the challenges, all of which were out of the Orioles' control, Showalter's club persevered. They bounced back with an 8-3 win last night and split the four game series. They now lead the Red Sox in the season series 5-4 (I can't believe these teams have 10 more games against each other) and in ejections 2-1.

They're certainly going to have to deal with the ripple effects of an unfortunate decision by an umpire on Wednesday, but at least they put it behind them last night and picked up an important victory in Boston. It's a true testament to the skipper, who never makes excuses for his club and instead makes his team go out there and focus on the task at hand - even when the deck seems to be stacked against them.

Zach Wilt blogs about the Orioles at Baltimore Sports Report. Follow him on Twitter: @zach_wilt. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.