Kevin GausmanI briefly listened to a couple local sports talk radio personalities glance at the number of complete games Jim Palmer pitched in his career. It’s astounding, 211 in case you were wondering. These two went on to ask why the current Orioles rotation couldn’t pitch as deep into games as the Hall of Famer did during his career.

This blog post into the place to answer that question, I need hundreds of words to explain the difference between baseball in 2013 and how it’s changed from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Not that my answer would really matter.

After watching yet another bad starting pitching performance from my seats at Camden Yards, I was pleasantly surprised to hear about Kevin Gausman‘s outing at Trenton. The O’s prospect went six innings, surrendering four hits, an earned run, walking one and striking out a career high ten batters.

After an outing in which he only pitched 4 2/3 innings, it was a relief to see Gausman at least pitch six frames. Prior to that, the righty pitched 7 2/3 and seven innings.

The Baysox limited Gausman to 90 pitches and 60 were thrown for strikes. As we’ve discussed before, the Orioles are working with Gausman on when to throw pitches outside of the zone. He walked three batters in his last outing and has four over his last two starts after issuing just one free pass in his six prior.

On our podcast this week, Steve Melewski told us that he doesn’t think the Orioles timetable for Gausman has changed due to their continuously shuffling rotation at the big league level. Hopefully Gausman continues to put pressure on Dan Duquette and Buck Showalter and can provide that rotation help they’ll be looking for later in the season.