Matusz Tonight

[MarylandAaron]

He was better than the results showed. The defense made four errors behind him tonight. You're not going to put up great numbers when the defense isn't making the plays they're supposed to make.

[blid]

I thought he pitched a lot better than his line shows. If he can get his delivery consistent, I still think he's going to be fine. The only problem is that he just doesn't look like he can get it consistent.

Yeah, I think so too. A lot better than last game where he let all the leadoff hitters on and was escaping jams all game. This time he looked solid until his final inning.

[MarylandAaron]

And O'day should split that ERA with Matusz for letting all three inherited runners score.

[sangar]

Demoting Matusz would be wrong at this point. He needs to work through this at the major league level.

[Tom13206]

I think this was Matsuz's best performance of the year. Deserves another start or two IMO before getting sent down.

[Frobby]

Matusz wasn't great, but a lot of things outside of his control went wrong tonight. Reimold's poor play in the first inning allowed the 2nd run to score and extended the inning. Second inning should have been 1-2-3 but Andino makes an error on the third hitter (which ticked off Davis' glove), Aybar bunts safely and then a single scores another run when Jones bobbles the ball in the OF when he clearly was going to have a shot at throwing the runner out. 4th inning, Andino bounces a throw that Davis should glove to lead off the inning, Aybar bunts and Wieters can't make the throw to 1st (originally scored an error, later changed to a hit). 6th inning, Callaspo hits a grounder to 3B, Betemit makes a nice diving play, gets up, throws and the runner is called safe -- I thought he was out. Matusz leaves the game and the reliever gives up a shot to the RF alley for a double, Jones bungles the throw and everyone scores. Then O'Day shuts them down.

On top of those things, I thought the ump missed strikes at the knees that Matusz threw about five times.

On a different night, this could have been an 8 IP, 1-2 runs game for Matusz. At the end of 5 IP he had 6 K's and 1 BB, which was intentional. He was missing a lot of bats today when he kept the ball down in the zone.

Now, that said, he made a few horrible pitches, and I think Hunter's double in the 1st and Pujols' fly out in the 2nd might have been home runs on another night.

All in all, I think Matusz's line was extremely misleading, but he still missed some chances to minimize the damage.

[MarylandAaron]

Demoting Matusz would be wrong at this point. He needs to work through this at the major league level.

You're right, and couple this with the fact that we don't have many great options at AAA either.

[SrMeowMeow]

Tough to figure out why things wind up so bad for Matusz. Last game he showed the best curve he's shown in two years. Today he showed the best changeup he's shown in two years. The curve still looked good. The fastball was good. Location was inconsistent but not terrible. He looks great in the 5th and then walks 2 or the first 3 batters in the 6th. He's an enigma after tonight. The stuff is definitely there. No one better to take his place. The guys I saw tonight has the stuff to be a very good starter. Still seems like a black cloud hanging over his head though. The defense cost him 1 or 2 runs before the 6th inning. O'Day didn't bail him out but Matusz has to take most of the blame for that 6th inning.

Sounds like a work in progress to me.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Tough to figure out why things wind up so bad for Matusz. Last game he showed the best curve he's shown in two years. Today he showed the best changeup he's shown in two years. The curve still looked good. The fastball was good. Location was inconsistent but not terrible. He looks great in the 5th and then walks 2 or the first 3 batters in the 6th. He's an enigma after tonight. The stuff is definitely there. No one better to take his place. The guys I saw tonight has the stuff to be a very good starter. Still seems like a black cloud hanging over his head though. The defense cost him 1 or 2 runs before the 6th inning. O'Day didn't bail him out but Matusz has to take most of the blame for that 6th inning.

Spot on analysis imo. I was trying to watch Wieters glove and it seemed like Matusz was still pretty erratic with his FB, mainly high. He could be close to putting it together, but the FB command is still not there. I don't care how tired he was, walkiing a guy trying to bunt is pathetic. What did you think about all the FB's in the first two innings?

[Sparkwinder]

Just because he is "better" doesn't mean he is anywhere near being ready for MLB. Yeah, errors hurt him tonight, and the defense is hard to pitch to, but he is still pitching poorly, it has been for over a year, and the excuse list is getting comically long. I do not think that he is one of the 5 best options in this organization with regard to starting pitching at this point in time, and even if he does have a way higher upside than most of the others, he still belongs in Norfolk til he figures it out. If I was running the show, that's where he would have started the year. Everyone assumes that next start will be better. Just like last year. Meanwhile, he costs us game after game. If this was July and we were 15 back, sure, do whatever with him. But the O's are showing some signs of life -- let's not kill it with a loss every fifth day.

[Kinvan]

Let us all not forget that there were three errors and at least two bad plays defensively. These didn't help him out either. He would have been out of the 1st and 2nd much faster in not for the mistakes. That is why a line doesn't always tell the whole story.

Oh and I hate Kevin Gregg

[Frobby]

Just because he is "better" doesn't mean he is anywhere near being ready for MLB.

In this case, I think it does. I thought he was really close last night to having a very good outing. I do worry about him making mistakes up in the zone, and too many pitches are getting away from him way high. But I saw a lot to like last night.

Frankly, I agree with you that there is a tendency of some posters to make excuses for Matusz, but last night the excuses were pretty legit. He threw 46 pitches in the first two innings and allowed 3 runs; with decent defense, he would have thrown 15 fewer pitches and allowed 2 fewer runs in those two innings. The ump called five balls on pitches that were strikes in the lower quadrant. With decent defense and umpiring, he's through 6-7 IP with 1 ER in this game.

I thought all of his breaking stuff looked great last night, and the changeup was devastating. His velocity is no longer an issue, though his fastball isn't going to overwhelm anyone. I am seeing progress.

[Frobby]

Matusz on Matusz:

"I definitely made some improvements in this start over the last," said Matusz, who allowed five runs on seven hits and four walks over 5 2/3 innings in Sunday's loss to the Blue Jays. "Threw some nice changeups and some nice sliders down in the zone and felt like I had pretty good command of the fastball. I am just not putting it all together right now."

http://baltimore.orioles.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2012_04_20_balmlb_anamlb_1&mode=recap_away&c_id=bal

Fair enough. I'm glad he's not too down on himself this time, but at the same time, he recognizes that he still has work to do.

I also liked this, when asked about the defense:

"The defense has been great behind me," Matusz said. "The guys made some good plays today too. It's out of my control. For me I need to pound the zone better and be able to throw up more zeros."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bal-orioles-20120420,0,6832987.story

[allstar1579]

Tough to figure out why things wind up so bad for Matusz. Last game he showed the best curve he's shown in two years. Today he showed the best changeup he's shown in two years. The curve still looked good. The fastball was good. Location was inconsistent but not terrible. He looks great in the 5th and then walks 2 or the first 3 batters in the 6th. He's an enigma after tonight. The stuff is definitely there. No one better to take his place. The guys I saw tonight has the stuff to be a very good starter. Still seems like a black cloud hanging over his head though. The defense cost him 1 or 2 runs before the 6th inning. O'Day didn't bail him out but Matusz has to take most of the blame for that 6th inning.

Yeah that's pretty much Matusz from the minors. Change and Curve can be devastating any given day, at least one of them is usually on every start, but the FB control is what keeps him in trouble, he gets behind in the count early trying to through the FB missing, then has to go to the curve and change to get back in the AB, which runs him up to full counts all the time. Those days where the FB is working, he's lights out, but I saw him like 5-6 times and it was really only good twice.

[Floater]

Matusz just doesn't have the look of a good pitcher anymore, everything looks wrong. I'm gonna already chalk this up to yet again another O's failure drafting in the 1st round. It's never too early to call it like you see it.