The Orioles were humiliated in the middle game of their series up in Detroit. Dean Kremer was roughed up on the mound, and the O’s lineup did almost nothing to fight back, losing 14-0 at Comerica Park on Tuesday evening.
This was a miserable game to endure from an Orioles fan’s perspective. Even the rosiest of supporters would need to be donning their thickest pair of orange-tined glasses in order to see anything positive at all. The smarter decision would have been to turn the game off completely
sometime in the second inning.
Each of the three actual pitchers used by the Orioles were bad. The Tigers scored runs in each of their eight chances to bat. Dean Kremer lasted four innings, and was charged with eight runs. His season ERA is up to 6.50. Albert Suárez coughed up two runs and recorded only four outs. Josh Walker was barely better, giving up two runs and getting just five outs. It got so bad that Chadwick Tromp was asked to fill in on the mound. He was equally ineffective (one inning, two runs) with his offerings that could have safely driven through a school zone.
Kremer is the one to worry about. This is now back-to-back disappointing starts for him. He allowed six runs to the Red Sox on July 22. He hasn’t even put forth a quality start since July 1, when he gave up one run over six innings to the White Sox. His season ERA has more than doubled (from 3.18 to 6.50) since then.
Nothing was working well for Kremer in this one. He was wild, throwing just 45 strikes in the 81-pitch outing. And he struggled to miss bats, inducing a meager 19% whiff rate. His season whiff rate prior to the game was 29.7%.
It should be said that Kremer is a notoriously slow starter in his career. Normally, April is a tough month (6.04 career ERA) for him. This season, a quad injury interrupted the beginning of his season and has made July into the first full month of play for him. Maybe he will improve later on, but the Orioles don’t have any wiggle room to wait. They need to win games, and Kremer isn’t helping them do that as a starter. The Orioles have two days off in the next six days. They can (and probably should) skip Kremer or put him in the bullpen for a few days.
Regardless of how good or bad Kremer was, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because of the way in which the Orioles lineup was dominated by Tigers starter Troy Melton. There’s no real shame there. Melton is in the midst of a terrific season and has been cruising through most opposing lineups. But this was a particularly poor showing for the Orioles offense.
Across nine innings of baseball the Orioles were unable to create even one at-bat with a runner in scoring position. They collected just three total hits, all of which were singles, and they walked twice. Jackson Holliday had two of the hits as his batting average on the season reached .252 after this one. So, that’s something.
There could be an argument to start putting Holliday at the top of the lineup, at least occasionally. He has been taking the best at-bats on the team recently and is walking more than 15% of the time. The offense needs a consistent spark, and manager Craig Albernaz is clearly trying to figure out the top spot in the order. They don’t want to fix something that isn’t broken by taking Holliday out of his current comfort zone. But they also have always wanted him to be their lead-off hitter anyway. The time to try it again is coming.
There isn’t much else to say about this game. The Orioles were utterly dominated in every facet of the game. It happens sometimes, and it’s not usually helpful to overthink it. Chalk it up as a bad night at the office and hope you do better next time out.
Speaking of which, this series will conclude on Wednesday afternoon in Detroit. It should be a nice pitching matchup. Trevor Rogers (6-7, 4.17 ERA) is on the bump for the Birds. He will be matched up against fellow lefty Tarik Skubal (7-5, 2.70 ERA). First pitch is set for 1:10 p.m.
