Tillman pitches Orioles past Tigers

However, Tillman, the club’s two-time Opening Day starter, isn’t proclaiming himself back just yet.

The Baltimore Orioles won the American League East in 2014 and swept the Detroit Tigers in three games in the division series before falling to the Kansas City Royals in the ALCS. He can also nab RBI’s in bunches, racking up plenty of gaudy statistics that make him one of the rising hitting stars in the league. “So that makes it doubly impressive”.

“Getting closer. That’s one, I got a lot more to go”, Tillman said of turning around his season.

Oh that bullpen: Alex Wilson threw a scoreless inning of relief. “Really not my game, but hey, I’ll take it”. “When [Showalter] told me I was done, I glanced up and realized it then”.

Fortunately for the Tigers, they will have their three best pitchers going this weekend.

So Tillman has to settle for his fifth career one-hitter of six innings or more and his first of at least eight innings since September 28, 2012.

Gonzalez has split his last four starts with a 7.52 ERA. He gave way to Zach Britton, who picked up his 24th save with a flawless ninth. “But watching Price pitch is fun”. Verlander is 9-2 with a 3.43 ERA and 88 strikeouts in his career against the Orioles. In the third inning, Chris Davis crushed a ball to the right field wall, sending Martinez back immediately in front of the 330′ marker. Machado’s one-out blast in the third inning was all the support he needed. “You try to get on base or hit a homer. Any time you get a chance to beat a guy like that, it’s good”.

THE UGLY: The Orioles struck out 12 times against Price. Last season, he played excellent defense in the outfield to the tune of a 1.000 fielding percentage in 242 defensive innings. That includes allowing one run in six innings of a 9-1 road win over the Chicago White Sox on July 5. Yet, he struck out a dozen batters and held the Orioles to 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position.

Friday night, however, amid Detroit’s important 7-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles, Martinez proved he could play a little defense, too. But they didn’t score a run.

Iglesias was hit by a pitch in the second, stole second and scored on a ground rule double to left by center fielder Anthony Gose, putting Detroit up 3-1.

Victor Martinez hit a two-run home run to right in the first, the fourth he had hit off Jimenez in 25 at-bats, to enable the Tigers to jump on top 2-0.

“We were four inches from bringing the tying run to the plate”, Showalter said.

THE GOOD: Tillman has not lost in his last eight starts and pitched marvelously. Here we go again, right?