In his return from the IL, Cade Povich was good tonight at Citizen’s Bank Park in Philadelphia. Not perfect, but good. Not great, but good enough to win. 5.2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 7 K.
Povich was a hard-luck loser, albeit not in the way we might normally think. This wasn’t necessarily a pitcher’s duel. But in a perfect world, Povich would have actually gotten the win as opposed to the loss.
Povich surrendered a solo homer to Harper in the first inning. However the O’s battled in the early innings. Tyler O’Neill smacked a two-run home run in the second to thrust the Orioles into the lead at 2-1. They would extend it to 3-1 in the third on Jordan Westburg’s solo homer.
The interesting thing is that those two home runs were on pitches well out of the strike zone. It seems like the Orioles couldn’t heed what they were being told by that. They couldn’t see that weak pitches out of the zone weren’t going onto cut it.
Povich was lifted in the seventh after recording two outs and allowing a base hit. Interestingly, that base hit was a contested play. Gunnar Henderson made an amazing play to get to a Realmuto grounder in the hole, and the throw wasn’t in time. The Orioles challenged the play, but the call was upheld. My personal opinion is that he was rightfully out. But there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn the call on the field.
Following a Castellanos single, Corbin Martin’s four-seam fastball was slugged into the stands by Bader to give Philadelphia a 6-3 lead. All of the pitches in the Bader at-bat were either out of the strike zone, or on the fringes. This with Corbin Martin on the mound.
Martin would also surrender an RBI-single to Wilson, and then an emphatic grand slam to Schwarber. Philadelphia would also tack on two additional solo home runs in the eighth. And the O’s fell 13-3 in the series opener.
Prior to the Schwarber grand slam, Martin issued a walk to Turner – again, primarily by nibbling. On a 1-2 pitch, Martin had Turner struck out. Pitch track showed the pitch in the fringes of the strike zone.
But when you constantly nibble on the strike zone, you aren’t going to get that call. Povich got tagged with the loss, but he shouldn’t have. It’s merely a technicality that an inherited runner scored. Povich attacked the strike zone. Subsequent Oriole pitchers didn’t. They tried to nibble on the fringes and get cheap strikes. And home plate umpire Jim Wolf wasn’t having it.
When Martin was forced to throw the ball more over the plate with the bases loaded, Schwarber had the ability to sit on a fastball. And it wasn’t good enough to overpower Schwarber.
When you’re forced to pitch to a heavy hitter like Schwarber, odds are he knows you have to pitch to him. Sometimes that’s the line between winning and losing. That can also be defined by things such as instant replay. Had Coby Mayo stretched just a little further to get the ball on the instant replay review prior to the grand slam, it never happens.
The series continues tomorrow night at Citizen’s Bank Park. Dean Kremer gets the start for the O’s, and he’ll be opposed by Philadelphia’s Taijuan Walker. Game time is set for 6:45 PM.
Birdland Crush 