Zach Wilt: Bundy showing potential as a starter in O's rotation

For just the second time this season, the Orioles lost a series in Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Let's be honest, the hometown fans have gotten a little spoiled by the O's this season. If you've purchased a ticket to watch the Birds at home in 2016, you've probably seen them win. They're winning 69 percent of the games they play in Charm City. Last night, however, they were simply outmatched by Rockies rookie Jon Gray and dropped two of three from Colorado.

It wasn't all bad though. Chris Davis snapped his 0-for-24 with a smooth-looking bunt down the third base line against the shift. The Blue Jays, Red Sox and Yankees all took losses last night, maintaining the Orioles' two-game lead in the American League East. And Dylan Bundy retired the first 16 batters he faced in his third major league start.

Bundy had it all going for him early in this game. He fanned a career-high eight batters and cleanly worked through the Rockies lineup nearly twice before issuing a walk to the number eight hitter, Mark Reynolds. That free pass was eventually followed by homers from Nick Hundley and David Dahl.

Regardless of the outcome, there are a lot of positives to take away from Bundy's effort last night. Two weeks ago, we were questioning the Orioles' decision to hand Bundy the ball in a start against the Rays. Today, a simple glance at his game log will show you clearly the progress he's made in each of his three outings. Buck Showalter praised Bundy's progress last night in a couple telling quotes. "Dylan is a watcher. He's an absorber. He's alert. He watches his teammates," the skipper said according to Roch Kubatko. "I think watching a guy like Chris Tillman, there's no sequence, no pattern."

That unpredictability could make Bundy a dangerous weapon for the Orioles down the stretch. Against Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado in the first, Bundy set him up with a 94 mile-per-hour fastball on the inside edge against the righty. He threw a curveball in the dirt for ball one, followed it with a curveball at about chest height for a called strike, then Arenado flew out to left field on a fastball high fastball on the outer edge of the plate.

The second time Bundy faced the Rockies' No. 3 hitter, he started him off with an 83 MPH changeup on the outer part of the plate, a pitch that he didn't show Arenado the first time he faced him. Bundy followed with a fastball low and inside for a called strike, threw one up and in for ball one and struck out Arenado swinging with a fastball at the letters and inside. In both at-bats, he worked different parts of the plate and saved the changeup for the second time he faced Colorado's slugger.

He showed a similar unique pitch sequences to David Dahl, who struck out in the first inning in a six pitch at-bat. Bundy worked Dahl with fastballs and changeups that were primarily low and inside and mixed in three pitches in the upper third of the zone. Dahl then grounded out in the fourth inning on four pitches in the bottom half of the zone. Bundy started him with a fastball in the first and a change in the fourth.

After the game, Showalter and Bundy acknowledged that he elevated a couple of his changeups to Hundley and in his third matchup against Dahl, which resulted in homers. There's still plenty of room for the 23-year-old righty to improve and I'm sure he'll take the lessons he learned against the Rockies into that next start. Overall though, Bundy's maturation through three starts and his proven ability to learn between those outings are incredibly encouraging for the O's.

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.