Cobb's night points to Orioles' larger issues

Like every area of the team, the Orioles’ starting rotation is better than it was a year ago. The stability of the unit makes this true by default; after shuffling through 18 different starters a year ago, the return of Alex Cobb and additions of veterans like Tommy Milone and Wade LeBlanc have provided a bedrock of consistency the Orioles sought for long stretches in 2019.

But what the O’s haven’t gotten much of is length from many of those arms, which is what made Cobb’s effort in their 7-2 loss to the Blue Jays at Oriole Park on Monday such a positive development. Despite allowing five runs to Toronto on a night he was overshadowed by Hyun Jin Ryu, Cobb tossed 6 2/3 innings to log the longest start by a Baltimore starter this season.

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It was the kind of outing the O’s will look for more of with John Means being built back up in order to ease the burden on their resurgent bullpen, which manager Brandon Hyde has been forced to lean on early and often so far this year. Even with Cobb’s performance on Monday, Orioles starters have logged fewer innings than all but four American League rotations.

“Tonight was a big night for us to kind of give them a breather,” Cobb said. “If we want any chance of staying in this race, we’re going to have to do that as starters. We have some great [bullpen] arms who made some big steps from last year. We owe it to them to give them some breathers. They’ve picked us up so many times early on in the season. Now that we’re built up as starters, we need to start going deeper.”

Despite his injury history, it’s Cobb who's been Baltimore’s most durable starter in the early going, pitching at least into the sixth in three of his five outings. Tuesday’s starter, LeBlanc, hasn’t made it out of the fourth in either of his last two, and Milone and Asher Wojciechowski are both averaging 4.5 innings per start. Means is yet to finish three innings in any start, largely due to pitch-count factors brought on by issues beyond his control.

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Meanwhile, the O’s have brought Thomas Eshelman, Jorge López and recently Dillon Tate on as long men to fill gaps, and routinely stretched guys like Miguel Castro, Tanner Scott and Cole Sulser that probably profile better in one-inning roles. It’s a dynamic not unique to them, as teams around the league look to balance workloads and pitcher health during this unprecedented 60-game season.

“As the starters continue to build, I think that will be very, very helpful,” Hyde said. “It’s the nature of the close games we’ve been playing as well as these guys having not a normal Spring Training to ramp up. Hopefully we can start going deeper as a starting staff.”

Cobb’s effort on Monday came under frustrating circumstances, done in by a four-run third inning during which three infield singles precluded Randal Grichuk’s three-run homer. Grichuk added a 65.3 mph RBI bloop single in the sixth to end Cobb’s night. In between, Cobb struck out four, walked one and was aided by two highlight-reel plays from Andrew Velazquez, who was subbing in for the ailing José Iglesias at shortstop.

“That’s an aggressive swinging team, and he was aggressive with them in the strike zone,” Hyde said of Cobb. "He pitched into the seventh and probably could’ve gone a little bit longer. He gave us a chance.”