Royals 5, Orioles 0: Yordano Ventura shuts out O's over 8 innings

The Orioles have had a pair of impressive comeback wins in their last two games, but tonight it wasn't to be. Ubaldo Jimenez surrendered a couple of runs in the first inning, allowing a walk and three consecutive singles with one out, putting the O's in an 2-0 early hole. He settled down after that, though, recovering nicely from a man-on-third, no-out situation in the second and retiring the side in order in the fourth and sixth.

Jimenez pitched into the seventh inning, but walked the first batter and then allowed two singles for one run, at which point manager Buck Showalter turned to T.J. McFarland. McFarland gave up another RBI single before getting a strikeout and double-play grounder, pitching decently overall despite surrendering another run in the ninth.

Meanwhile, the O's simply could not figure out how to handle Kansas City rookie Yordano Ventura. He struck out eight Orioles over as many innings, allowing just seven hits and two walks. On another night, that might be enough to score a couple of runs, but all of the hits were singles, and Ventura prevented the O's from having any real rallies. Greg Holland came in to pitch the ninth, simply to keep Ventura from throwing too many pitches, as he sat at 113 after the eighth inning.

While the loss wasn't horribly depressing - no blown leads, nor opposing pitchers with mediocre stuff that somehow strand a dozen runners - there was a bit of bad news. Chris Davis left the game prior to the fifth inning with an oblique strain. Buck didn't have much to add in the post-game press conference, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out how severe the injury is.

On the plus side, Manny Machado played his first rehab game tonight in Frederick, and hit two doubles and a triple in four at-bats while DHing due to the poor weather. The team already badly needs Manny, and if Davis is out for an extended period of time, he can't get here soon enough.

Tomorrow, Wei-Yin Chen will pitch against former Oriole Jeremy Guthrie, starting at 7:05 P.M.