LaTroy Hawkins gets the win this time, his 2nd.
Adam Loewen started and struggled a little bit, but still held the Devil Rays to 3 runs over 5 innings. He struck out 2, walked 2, and gave up 9 hits. The walks have come a long way since when he was first brought up. Jim Hoey made his second appearance since being called up. It seems like he was still a little nervous. He pitched 2 innings, the second of which was much better than the first. He gave up a solo homerun and a walk while striking out one. Tim Byrdak started out the 8th, gave up 2 hits and was pulled in favor of Todd Williams. Williams pitched a scoreless inning, only walking one. LaTroy Hawkins gave up a hit in a scoreless ninth to get the win.
The hitting was consistent, and again, did enough to get the win. Brian Roberts, Nick Markakis, Melvin Mora, Miguel Tejada, and Kevin Millar all had 2 hits. Tejada and Millar with doubles. Jeff Conine also had a double and the game tying RBI in his last game as an Oriole. Corey Patterson and Chris Widger also had hits. A nice comeback victory, scoring run in the last 3 innings.
Markakis watch: 2-5 (.309)
Another day off on Monday before the team heads to Texas for a 3 game series. In game 1 it’ll be Rodrigo Lopez (9-13, 6.03) against Kevin Millwood (12-9, 4.73). Prospect Hayden Penn’s next start will be with the big club, which is exciting. Go O’s.
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How’d Loewen look on the hits? I didn’t get a chance to catch the game. He seemed to mostly give up singles, which is a good sign; it generally means that even his mistakes are hard to drive.
Was he mostly hitting his spots and Tampa Bay just hit a lot of decent pitches through holes, or did he fall behind in counts and then leave a lot of stuff in the middle of the plate? I’m curious.
Anyway, 3 runs on 9 hits is a pretty solid salvage job, and clearly kept the O’s with a chance to win the game.
What are your thoughts?
From what I remember he gave up some doubles and was a little wild. But he did only walk 2 batters and managed to keep the runs down for 9 hits in 5 innings. The most impressive thing was in the 5th when the first 3 hitters of the inning all singled. He then got out of the inning without any more runs coming in. He threw 80 pitches. I think it was just one of those games where you don’t have your best stuff, but you still manage to keep a big number of runs off the board. Its not a performance that makes me worry about his future.