Seattle @ Baltimore preview
Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Last Meeting ( Aug 17, 2010 ) Seattle 4, Baltimore 0
The finale of a three-game set between two of the league’s basement dwellers goes Wednesday when the Baltimore Orioles play host to the Seattle Mariners.
The Orioles (42-78) send their undisputed ace, Jeremy Guthrie (7-11, 3.88 ERA) to the mound against 27-year-old David Pauley, who earned his first career win last Friday. Pauley may have his work cut out for him against Guthrie and a resurgent Orioles squad.
Since Buck Showalter took over the managing duties, the Orioles have lost just five of 15 games and are playing with much more enthusiasm than they were earlier in the year. Not that Jeremy Guthrie needed much prodding. The 31-year-old is working on a 1.51 ERA since the All-Star break and leads the team in overall wins, ERA and WHIP.
Guthrie leans heavily on his fastball (both a two-seam and a four-seam heater) and slider, but also has a tight curve and a changeup in his repertoire. He isn’t overpowering by any means with just 81 punchouts in 153 innings of work.
However, what he does do well is keep his pitch count down, changing locations and speeds to keep opposing hitters off balance. Guthrie has cracked the 110-pitch count just twice all season.
He’s coming off a 5-0 win over Tampa Bay in which he threw six scoreless innings, allowing just two hits. Guthrie also walked four in that outing, his highest walk total since a July 8 loss at Boston.
Meanwhile, Pauley is determined to stick around in the bigs after spending a lot of time riding the bus in the minors. To do that, he has to keep the ball down with his sinker and keep his composure early in the game, which he did a good job of in each of his last two starts.
However, three starts ago, the Chicago White Sox sent him down the tunnel early by pushing across four runs in the third inning against him.
Pauley will be up against an Orioles offense that averages just 3.69 runs per game. Seattle’s offense is even worse, ranking dead last in the league at 3.22 runs per game.
On Tuesday, Luke French threw 7 2/3 innings of shutout, three-hit baseball to lead the Mariners (47-73) to a 4-0 win over the Orioles. French had a no-hitter going through 5 1/3 innings and got all the support he needed from Matt Tuiasosopo.
Tuiasosopo drove in the game's only runs with an RBI double and a three-run insurance homer in the ninth.