Does last night's 8-0 loss to the Chicago White Sox do anything to dim your view of the Orioles' future? I hope not; out of 162 games per year, there'll be some duds. Unfortunately 2010 has brought a lot of duds for the O's, however keep in mind that there's more than meet's the eye in every situation. Jake Arrieta struggled in his four innings of work last night: four runs over seven hits, three walks and two strikeouts. However as I've said before, Rick Kranitz says that on average a pitcher will get thirty starts per season (barring injury); ten will be stellar, ten not so stellar, and ten in-between. This is generally the case across the board, be you a Cy Young candidate or a youngster.
Games such as last night will go down as learning experiences for a pitcher like Arrieta, who made only his fifteenth start in the majors. The thing that did him in was his 35-pitch first inning. When you throw that many pitches (seeing seven different batters) in an inning, you're going to struggle. However one positive sign for Arrieta was that he worked out of trouble in that inning. Arrieta gave up a few hits and three walks in that first inning, the walks probably harming him moreso than the hits. That was the skinny on Arrieta when he first came up; he needed to keep his walks down. However he pitched out of a bases loaded situation and gave up only one run that inning. Pitchers will get themselves into trouble in games; it's the nature of the position. The good ones will find ways out of that trouble.
We need to recognize that games like this might be painful to watch while they're going on, however the fact remains that they're necessary in the maturation process of young pitchers, as well as young teams. Speaking for myself, the zero on the board in the Orioles' column (and only four hits) is more worrisome than the eight on Chicago's side. This offense at times has been non-existant, and that was certainly the case last night. However we should also keep in mind that Adam Jones sat out his second straight game after being hit on Tuesday night, so they weren't exactly firing with all of their guns last night.
I did find some irony in the fact that the White Sox felt that Felix Pie was stealing signs in Wednesday's 4-2 win over the White Sox. If a player on a team with 45 wins at this stage is stealing signs, he's not doing a very good job! However I liked what WGN's Steve Stone told MASN's Amber Theoharis prior to last night's game with regard to Pie potentially stealing signs. His comment was that Felix Pie has an uppercut swing; when you pitch up to a hitter with an uppercut swing, you're going to get hit hard. If anyone would know that, it would be a former pitcher. I'm not saying that sign-stealing doesn't go on, because we'd all be lying if we thought that wasn't the case. However as I said, if a guy on a team with 45 wins is stealing signs, he's either not doing his job properly or he's not cheating-I mean-trying hard enough.
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