It might sound strange, but Wade Miley was actually grateful that his Orioles debut against the Texas Rangers concluded Thursday night with him taking a hard comebacker off his left calf.
The left-hander had a noticeable limp coming off the mound to show for it as his muscle tightened while he walked back to the Orioles dugout. But not before the ball ricocheted off his leg right to second baseman Jonathan Schoop for a groundout that ended a difficult fifth inning for Miley.
"It's one of those things," Miley said. "I'm glad it hit me; would've been one more run if it didn't hit me. So it worked out good."
Miley, acquired Sunday in a trade with the Seattle Mariners to bolster the Orioles' starting rotation, obviously wanted a better outcome in his first game with his new team. But in the Orioles' 5-3 loss to the Rangers, Miley allowed some hard hits while also experiencing his share of hard luck.
The Rangers had Miley's number all season – battering him in three previous starts this season for a 7.41 ERA – and then at the trade deadline added sluggers Carlos Beltran and Jonathan Lucroy, the latter of whom was a .364 hitter against Miley coming into Thursday.
So Miley, who acknowledged he had some pregame jitters, was already facing unfavorable odds in his Orioles debut. Add that he struggled with his command, specifically locating his fastball, and it made for a disappointing game for Miley, who allowed four runs on eight hits – the first five of which went for extra bases – over five innings.
"I didn't have very good command at all, had to battle to make some pitches," Miley said. "… Overall it's not exactly how I wanted to go out and throw, but at the same time, it's baseball. You're never going to do your best every time out, but I was able to make some pitches in some jams and get out of some stuff. But it's something to build on and get the first one out of the way."
Orioles manager Buck Showalter liked what he saw in Miley's first outing.
"Some balls on the ground, works fast," Showalter said. "Good lineup over there and he kept us engaged in the game. We got back, just couldn't get that last hit."
In introducing Miley on Monday, executive vice president Dan Duquette lauded the 29-year-old's resume of keeping the ball on the ground — he entered the game with a 48.4 percent ground-ball rate over his career — and said he would be a good fit for the Orioles because of the exemplary defense that would play behind him.
Miley entered the night with four quality starts in his previous five outings with the Mariners, but on Thursday had his shortest start since a four-inning outing June 29 against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Rangers have handed him three of his nine losses this season.
"I don't know if you've seen, but they've gotten me pretty good," Miley said. "That's a good lineup over there. That's a good team they've put together."
Miley posted a 41.6 percent ground-ball rate Thursday, but the Rangers managed to hit balls where the Orioles defenders weren't early on, spraying the gaps with four doubles while Lucroy added a solo homer in the second inning. Of the five extra-base hits Miley allowed, two were on fastballs, two were on sliders and one came on a curveball.
"We talked about it before the game, had a plan," Miley said about working with catcher Matt Wieters for the first time. "And we kind of had to go off track of it a bit because I wasn't commanding the fastball. So I had to throw more off-speed than normal."
Miley's final pitch of the night gave the Orioles a scare. Texas second baseman Rougned Odor lined Miley's 91st pitch of the game back to the mound, and as the pitcher shifted awkwardly in an attempt to catch the ball, it hit his left calf. Miley fell to the dirt on the mound as the ball deflected to Schoop for an easy inning-ending groundout.
But Miley (7-9) stayed on the ground for a few moments before gingerly getting to his feet and hobbling off the mound. Miley's leg was taped heavily after the game, but he said the injury wasn't a concern. Showalter said it shouldn't jeopardize his next start.
"It just got real tight," Miley said after the game. "It was really tight. But after I walked it off a little bit, it kind of released and it really hasn't bothered me since."
Miley allowed leadoff doubles in three of his five innings. He managed to overcome Shin-Soo Choo's leadoff double in the first, stranding him at third. But Lucroy put the Rangers up with one out in the second when he deposited a 2-2 slider into the left-field stands. In the following inning, Delino DeShields led off with a double and came around to score on back-to-back groundouts.
The Rangers scraped two more runs off Miley in the fifth. Elvis Andrus' leadoff double was erased when Miley came off the mound to field DeShields' bunt and threw to third to get the lead runner.
But Texas then hit three straight singles, including one RBI hit by Ian Desmond that first baseman Chris Davis lost when he was screened by Choo, who was running from first to second. The other run scored on Beltran's bloop single into shallow right field, which Schoop couldn't corral.
Then Odor's comebacker hit Miley and ricocheted to Schoop, ending the inning and Miley's night.
"I thought it was competitive," Showalter said of Miley's outing. "Plays we normally make we didn't make. The runner did a great job of shielding Chris on the one and some ground balls snuck through. But I liked what I saw."
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