After a five hour, 15 inning game in which Buck Showalter and the Orioles used two starters and seven relief pitchers, the Orioles certainly face some question marks going into game two against the Yankees.
Showalter was forced to throw Thursday’s starter, Jeremy Guthrie in the 15th inning after Mike Gonzalez surrendered the lead to the Yankees. Guthrie pitched a full inning and was not charged with any earned runs. He threw just seven pitches.
“I’m ready to go tomorrow, so we’ll see,” Guthrie told MASNSports.com’s Roch Kubatko. “I have to go talk to him [Showalter] first.”
Early indications are that Showalter could go with Brad Bergesen as Thursday’s starter. “Bergy’s got four days rest tomorrow,” Showalter said. “He could potentially start tomorrow.”
Relief pitching is another question that surrounds that Orioles going into the weekend. Troy Patton is in Baltimore, but would require a roster move to join the team. Derrek Lee was out of the lineup on Wednesday night and Tuesday in the postponed game in Boston. According to Kubatko, Lee is “fighting the decision to put him on the disabled list” after he suffered an oblique injury against the Red Sox.
Brian Roberts was also sidelined with headaches, which he suffered sliding headfirst into first base to leadoff Monday’s game against Boston. As Jeff Zrebiec of the Sun points out, Roberts missed the last six games of last season due to headaches.
O’s fans will have to wait and see what Thursday brings after a crazy game on Wednesday night.
Z-Man…I’m not sure I get the part about how Buck was “forced to throw…Jeremy Guthrie” Wednesday night? Why not Bergeson, seeing as how they’d already fallen behind by that point? Wouldn’t you rather push Bergeson back in the rotation than Guthrie? I’m here to say that if Perlozzo or Mazilli or Trembley wouldda made that same move, the whole city wouldda been up in arms about it!
I’d probably question bringing in Gonzo more than Guthrie. Although I think you’re right, we all knew what we’d get from Bergy against the Yankees.
They wouldn’t have had this problem if they’d put Lee and Roberts on the DL before Wednesday’s game instead of Thursday’s game. It would’ve at least gave them an extra pitcher. A GM nodding off is the picture I get.
Curly — Good point! This whole Andy / Buck glamour pairing is starting to lose its luster to me…I looked today and the next 30 games, well, 29 after tonight are against some of the worst teams MLB has to offer…If the O’s go anything like 13 – 17 in that stretch, I mean, I just can’t imagine where’d they go from there?!?!?!