Mother's Day Bird Droppings

Mauer, Morneau have 3 hits, Twins beat Orioles 8-5 - Yahoo! Sports
"Brian Duensing pitched two innings of scoreless relief, Casey Fien got two outs and Jared Burton earned his first save with a perfect ninth as the Twins beat the Baltimore Orioles 8-5 Saturday night." Yup, those are the pitchers, along with Vance Worley, who beat the O's last night. Ugh.

Steve Johnson sent back to Triple-A after losing to Minnesota 8-5 - The Washington Post
"In the fourth inning, I lost command, lost the feel for the pitches," he said. "You just got to make a pitch, and I just didn’t do it." He is accurate in that summation of his performance, I must say.

School of Roch: Hearing from Steve Johnson, Wieters and Flaherty (Johnson optioned)
"Catcher Matt Wieters noted how it was a challenge for Johnson to throw his offspeed stuff for strikes. "The fastball was fine and the changeup came in pieces, but he just couldn't quite get offspeed pitches that he could keep them off-balance with, and big league hitters will eventually get on time," Wieters said." You can throw it 110 mph, but if it's straight, a MLB batter is gonna hit it, Spawn of Dave. Remember that.

Orioles to make a roster move -- again - baltimoresun.com
"The Tides bullpen has been pretty strong, so there are several candidates to choose from including right-handers Adam Russell and Jair Jurrjens and lefties Daniel Schlereth, Mark Hendrickson and Mike Belfiore, who is the only member of that group on the 40-man roster. Because Brian Roberts can easily be moved to the 60-day disabled list, however, the Orioles could choose a non-40-man pitcher." Encina projects it will be Russell. Sure, why not?

School of Roch: It's Chen's turn
"Their starters in the last two games have each lasted four innings. They're looking for left-hander Wei-Yin Chen to give them some length today and spare the bullpen, though they're adding another reliever as insurance." Here's hoping Chen makes it into the 7th inning today at a minimum, although 2 off days in the next 5 certainly helps the situation.

Steve Melewski: Gausman with two scoreless to start his night at Bowie (leaves after 4 2/3)
"One final note on Gausman tonight. While the stadium scoreboard flashed 100 on at least two of his pitches, one scout said he topped out at 98 on his radar gun. So he showed plenty of velocity again tonight, but he didn't quite get triple digits." I'll take 98. That's close enough for me.

Aside from being Mother's Day (and you'd better be nice to your Momma today!), it's the birthday of former Oriole Joe Nolan. In 1971, "Carl Taylor, after taking himself out of the game in the top of the seventh inning, goes into the clubhouse in Baltimore and sets fire to his baseball equipment and uniform in front of his locker. The 27-year old Royals' outfielder, who will be suspended for his actions, told manager Bob Lemon earlier to get a new left fielder because he was not helping the team or himself."