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For a brief period of time, things appeared to be going well for the Orioles. Five wins in a row, taking games out of the second wild card-holding Royals, good starting pitching, an offense that was doing well enough to get the job done. Baseball seems so much easier when your starting rotation isn’t pitching like the worst rotation in the league.
That happy little interruption of a dismal season has been halted for the moment. Between the bad pitching of Chris Tillman on Thursday night, with Tillman now seeming to be demoted to the bullpen, to a bad luck and mistake-laden loss on Friday night that saw the usually-reliable Mychal Givens blow it big time, the O’s are now again three games below .500.
Can the good starting pitching from players who aren’t named Tillman continue? If so, things will probably work out for the better, more or less. It will be up to Wade Miley to continue that trend, and then Ubaldo Jimenez tomorrow. Truly, nothing would be more 2017 Orioles than getting swept (or even losing three of four) to the Tigers after getting everybody’s hopes up by sweeping the Royals.
Starting for the Tigers is Drew VerHagen, who will be making just his second ever MLB start. He has some relief appearances under his belt that in the aggregate have been pretty bad. VerHagen has a 4.90 ERA in 19 starts for Triple-A Toledo this season. What should happen and what the Orioles need to happen are both obvious here. What will actually happen... well, let’s hope there’s no cause for lament.
I have had to leave the house today long before lineups are posted, but as you are someone who is clever and resourceful, I trust that you will be able to figure out who is playing in this game, where, and when they will be batting or pitching.