Can the Orioles finally get their acts together? Will Matt Harvey be the stopper?
The Orioles are having what you might call a rough go of it. Especially the pitching, which is just so bad. But you don’t need me to tell you that, you’re an Orioles fan! Will they finally prevail this evening, or is our best hope for a pleasant evening a rainout?
Pitching tonight is the enigmatic Matt Harvey. In his last start, Harvey was trying to run his streak of consecutive scoreless six inning starts to four. He failed to have a scoreless outing thanks to a home run and failed to pitch more than four innings due to a tweaked knee, which was disappointing. But he still didn’t look too bad and I’m mildly curious to see how he does tonight.
If the Orioles are going to stop their streak of giving up at least nine runs at six games, they’ll need Harvey to pitch more like the recent Harvey than the one earlier in the season whose ERA was just shy of 8 prior to the all-star break. They’ll also need the bullpen to not fall completely apart, but that seems to be too much to ask for at this point.
In Tigers news, they called up our old friend Renato “Tato” Núñez from the minors today. Tato appeared in seven games with the Tigers back in April, but has spent most of the year destroying Triple-A pitching to the tune of a .291/.383/.585 hitting line. He isn’t in the lineup tonight, but don’t rule out a pinch-hit monster homer from him. We saw more than a few of those when he was an Oriole.
I was always fond of Tato, so I wish him the best as soon as the Tigers leave Baltimore.
Orioles lineup
1. Cedric Mullins (L) CF
2. Austin Hays (R) LF
3. Trey Mancini (R) 1B
4. Anthony Santander (S) DH
5. Ramon Urias (R) 3B
6. Pedro Severino (R) C
7. Ryan McKenna (R) RF
8. Jorge Mateo (R) 2B
9. Richie Martin (R) SS
SP: Matt Harvey (RHP)
Tigers lineup
1. Robbie Grossman (S) RF
2. Jonathan Schoop (R) 2B
3. Miguel Cabrera (R) 1B
4. Jeimer Candelario (S) 3B
5. Eric Haase (R) C
6. Harold Castro (L) SS
7. Niko Goodrum (S) LF
8. Willi Castro (S) DH
9. Victor Reyes (S) CF
SP: Tarik Skubal (LHP)
Let’s go O’s!