Reasons Why Our Winning Ways Will Cotinue

[Bahama O's Fan]

Or reasons why we will not swoon this year. Let's hear you best reasons.

[connja]

The Orioles winning ways will continue as long as they continue to get good starting pitching. I'm not sure that will last all season - I doubt it, but will enjoy it while it does.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Because the young pitching is finally stepping up.

After years of getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop we are finally sucking on something cherry.

[tennOsfan]

If Hammel, Arrieta and Matusz continue to pitch like they did this week, we'll stay relevant for quite a while.

[Mr Snuffleupagus]

You sorta expect one of the starters will flounder at some point of get hurt, but that'll be okay because presumably Britton will be ready by then. Maybe even a second guy struggles. Well, if all we have is 4 guys that our reliable, we're still on our way to maintaining some level of this early season success.

[crawjo]

What I am encouraged by are the peripherals of our starting pitchers. This tells me that they are succeeding not mainly because of luck (i.e. getting a lot of outs on balls put in play or getting lucky with runners on base) but rather because they are pitching well. You see this in the strikeout and walk totals for our starters:

Jake Arrieta: 38.1 IP, 33 K, 9 W
Jason Hammel: 32 IP, 30 K, 10 W
Wei-Yin Chen: 24.1 IP, 19 K, 8 W

Those are solid numbers. Hunter and Matusz are not as good but they also have the worst ERAs on the team, as you would expect. Then in the bullpen, Strop, O'Day, and Lindstrom are all getting a strikeout an inning.

Don't get me wrong: the pitching IS over-achieving right now but not by as much as you might guess. And while the pitching is sure to come down to earth, we've also gotten off to a good start despite poor offensive production from Hardy and Reynolds that is sure to end at some point. Meanwhile Wieters, Jones, and Davis are all likely to cool off a little (although maybe not Wieters...) All in all I'd say the team is over-performing a bit, but a winning season is possible if this group can stay healthy and focused.

Also, I think we have to point out at this point that the early returns on the Guthrie trade, much maligned here and elsewhere, are very good. Hammel is off to a great start and more importantly he LOOKS great on the mound, with good command and great movement on his pitches. And Lindstrom looks to me like a quality set-up man.

[Gurgi]

One reason is that we are doing this without Britton. Britton is likely to be a solid starter for us. Maybe he will be well rested toward the end of the year when we need a fresh arm.

We also seem to have several pitchers in Norfolk that might be very good coming out of the pen.

Also Jones and Wieters are not flukes. They are deep blood major prospects and now are showing the world what they can do.

[Dipper9]

As long as we score more runs than the team we're playing that night, we will continue to win!

[Bahama O's Fan]

I think because some of our players have not lived up to expectations yet-Reimold (injury), Reynolds, Chavez, Hardy, Johnson, Britton, etc... When others start to falter, these should be picking it up by then.

[JohnnyK27]

One reason is that we are doing this without Britton. Britton is likely to be a solid starter for us. Maybe he will be well rested toward the end of the year when we need a fresh arm.

We also seem to have several pitchers in Norfolk that might be very good coming out of the pen.

Also Jones and Wieters are not flukes. They are deep blood major prospects and now are showing the world what they can do.

You'd have to think Britton is slated for the Norfolk rotation at this point.

[BirdinBama]

Well, if our team ERA stays at 2.83 for the rest of the year, we'll be in it! I'm just enjoying the ride right now. Jake was an absolute filthy, nasty beast last night! Matusz is starting to show us something as well.

[oriolekid]

We'll continue to win because we have Jesus on our team and other teams don't.

[jamalshw]

You'd have to think Britton is slated for the Norfolk rotation at this point.

Probably, but if Britton pitches well in rehab and Hunter continues to be lackluster, maybe Britton replaces Hunter in the rotation and Hunter takes Gregg's spot in the pen.

[mcinww0]

We'll continue to win because Matusz is back on track and we have decent starting pitching depth.

Matusz going from what he was last year to what he's becoming this year (knock on wood) is huge.

[tilgaham]

We said at the beggining of spring training that if Markakis returned to .800, Wieters and AJ broke out, and the pitching performed to their potential we'd be a .500 team or better. You're seeing the best case scenario right now. We'll be a .500 team this year, and that's great all things considered.

The interesting question is what we do at the deadline if we're leading the wildcard?