The Orioles fell in New York 7-4 on Wednesday night after a 1.2 inning outing from starting pitcher Chris Tillman. The 22 year old has seen declining numbers in his statistics since his 6 inning no hit performance on April 2 against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Following the game, Manager Buck Showalter told Gary Thorne that Tillman has to improve. “Not good. Not good. Not good enough,” Showalter said. “He’ll have to get better than that.”
Showalter commented on Tillman’s control saying that he saw only three first pitch strikes on seventeen batters. “I don’t care if you’re playing a real good club like the Yankees, you’re going to have some troubles [without throwing more strikes],” Showalter said.
It was six earned runs Wednesday night and four against Detroit on April 7 in 4.2 innings. Showalter says that he feels Tillman is “forcing” pitches. “I thought he was forcing his last outing, [his] first time was good even though he had some command issues.”
Didn’t see most of the game, but understand his fastball was topping out around 89 MPH. That’s BP speed to major league hitters.
Tillman also struggled to reach 90 on the Camden Yards gun last week against the Tigers…
And…
Now Markakis can no longer make a decent throw to home plate with the game on the line against the slowest runner the Yankees have…So that means he doesn’t drive in runs anymore OR have value in the outfield…Guess $55 million doesn’t go as far as it used to, huh?