The Orioles will enter today's final game of May with a 13-15 record this month. That's not good. But here's the startling part. They head into today's game with the Tampa Bay Rays tied for the best record in the division in May.
The Rays are also 13-15 in May. The Yankees went into their late-night game in Oakland on Saturday with a 12-15 record this month. And the Blue Jays (12-16) and Red Sox (10-18) also have losing records in May.
Is this the American League East or the American League Least?
So despite all of the struggles and injuries the Orioles have dealt with the first two months of the season, they're very much on even ground with their division rivals. No one is running away with this thing yet.
"You try to be consistent and there are a lot of things you strive to be consistent in, a lot of areas besides the physical part of it," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "You just kind of hope the season settles down and we get some consistency. There's a lot of excuses there, none of which I want to hear. It's challenging playing really good teams, the best in the world, and you've got to do a lot of things well over a really long period of time to do what we need to do and what we've done in the past. Our guys know that."
-- Orioles left-hander Wei-Yin Chen, who recorded his fourth start of seven or more innings in his last five outings Saturday, hasn't received much run support from his teammates this season. He has posted six quality starts in his 10 outings this season, but has received just an average of 2.3 runs of support in those outings.
And over his last four starts, spanning 26 innings, the Orioles have scored just two runs with him in the game. Chen is 18-4 in 28 career starts in which he goes at least seven innings. Three of those four losses have come in his last four starts.
Chen said Saturday that he isn't feeling added pressure with the team not scoring runs.
"I don't really think about that too much," Chen said through interpreter Louis Chao. "Everybody's playing hard, and we all try to win, we all try to perform, so I think everybody's doing their best, and I try not to think about that."
-- Catcher Steve Clevenger is 4-for-7 in his two starts since rejoining the club from Triple-A Norfolk. And he already has more hits in two games than former backup catcher Ryan Lavarnway did in 10 games. Lavarnway was 3-for-28 before he was designated for assignment this past week.
Take away Clevenger's 2-for-3 day Saturday and the rest of the Orioles lineup was 1-for-26. Clevenger was called up to replace Lavarnway as the backup catcher after hitting .352/.413/.451 in 91 at-bats with Norfolk.
Clevenger also threw out his first big league base runner Saturday, throwing out Steven Souza Jr. attempting to steal second base. It's a good start for Clevenger, who was just 3-for-20 throwing out potential base stealers at the big league level last season. At Norfolk this season, Clevenger threw out 32 percent of runners (12 of 37) before being called up.
"I'm not too worried about my offense here," Clevenger said. "I really want to catch well and make the pitching staff want to throw to me. I'm not focused too much on my offense. We lost the game today, and I'm not satisfied with that."