In hindsight, he probably should have gone to the minors, pitched for a week, and we wouldn't have had this problem. What is important about that is they are allowing fewer unearned runs. On Saturday, Mateo's strong throw home nabbed Surhoff for the fourth-inning's first out. It stopped a rally from turning bigger. The Orioles scored their only run in the inning on Cal Ripken Jr.'s two-out single.
Manufactured runs are big weapons in close games.
In the fifth, Jason McDonald led off with a double. Luis Alicea followed with a perfect bunt along the third base line for a base hit. We need to have confidence that we can win games like this.