BALTIMORE -- It was a tale of two pitchers Wednesday night at Camden Yards. Two young hurlers who, on paper, had plenty in common, but in reality couldn't have been more different. And that difference might have crushed what little hope the Baltimore Orioles had left.
Mike Wright and Henry Owens both came into 2015 ranked among the top 10 prospects in their organization. They both got called up in the middle of the season to fill a need created by injuries in the big league rotation. They both started off strong, only to encounter major growing pains as their respective scouting reports got out and teams adjusted. Because that's what big league hitters do; they adjust. Not that you'd know it by watching the Orioles on Wednesday.
The Boston Red Sox pounced on Wright early, scoring four times in the first three innings and launching two home runs: a solo shot by David Ortiz and a two-run job by Dustin Pedroia. After he allowed hits to the first two batters in the fourth, not to mention quite a few loud outs prior to that, Wright's night was over. It was nothing new for the 25-year-old righty.
Since throwing 14 1/3 shutout innings over his first two big league starts back in June, the 2011 third-round pick hasn't lasted more than five frames in any of his seven starts and has now allowed an alarming 28 earned runs over his past 28 1/3 innings.
Not exactly the guy you want taking the hill in a must-win game, which is pretty much what this game, and every other game the O's have played recently, was.
Meanwhile, for all the hurt that the Sox inflicted on Wright, the Orioles couldn't touch Owens. It was as if there was no existing video footage of the first-round pick who, like Wright, hails from the 2011 draft. As if the Seattle Mariners didn't torch him for seven runs on 10 hits in his third big league start. As if, two weeks later, the New York Yankees didn't rack up seven runs of their own on six hits in less than two innings. As if the O's had never caught a single glimpse of the lanky lefty and his super slo-mo curve. As if the notoriously free-swinging Birds had no inkling whatsoever that Owens has struggled to keep the ball in the strike zone, both in the minors and majors.
By the time Owens clocked out in the bottom of the eighth, he'd allowed just six harmless singles without issuing a free pass, the first time in his big league career that he didn't walk anyone.
Said Orioles manager Buck Showalter: "We knew he was going to throw about 45 to 50 percent off-speed pitches and he did, and was going to have some challenges commanding the fastball, which he did. We just didn't make very good adjustments."
"He just kept us off balance," added shortstop J.J. Hardy.
Meanwhile, the Orioles' starting pitcher did exactly the opposite.
"[Wright] just didn't command the baseball very well," Showalter said. "We caught a couple other balls they hit hard. He had a fairly crisp first inning and after that the command of the baseball deserted him. A lot of balls in the center of the plate."
Said Wright: "I felt good. Felt good all my starts. That's what's really tough about it is I feel good about it, and then I get hit all over the yard."
He wasn't the only Orioles pitcher to take a beating. Reliever Jorge Rondon allowed three hits in two innings, including Pedroia's second home run of the night, a three-run shot that put the Red Sox up 9-0.
It was such a thorough beatdown that, when the top of the eighth rolled around with the Red Sox leading 10-0, Showalter decided to give most of his regulars the rest of the night off. He inserted so many subs (eight, including reliever T.J. McFarland) that public-address announcer Ryan Wagner just barely finished announcing them prior to the first pitch of the inning. It was such a profound pummeling that, when the Orioles finally did plate a run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, the Camden Yards crowd -- or what remained of a thin gathering of 22,000-plus -- gave a sarcastic cheer.
Although the 10-1 loss didn't completely eliminate the Birds from wild-card contention, it had the undeniable feel of one last nail in the coffin -- whether or not the Orioles care to admit it.
"We've said we need to go out there and win 'em all," Hardy said. "Obviously, we lost tonight, but we need to take that same approach going into the next series. Nobody here is giving up and that's the way we're going to go about it."