SARASOTA
In his quest to join the Orioles’ starting rotation, Kevin Gausman made a favorable first impression on Wednesday.
The Orioles’ Ryan Flaherty tags out the Tigers’ Aaron Westlake during Baltimore’s Grapefruit League home opener against Detroit on Wednesday at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota. Staff photo / Dan Wagner
Pitching just the first inning, the right-hander allowed one hit and struck out one in Baltimore’s 5-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers before 8,367, the Orioles’ largest opening-day crowd at Ed Smith Stadium in their six years in Sarasota.
Throwing nine of his 14 pitches for strikes and reaching 96 mph with his fastball, Gausman fared considerably better than Ubaldo Jimenez, Baltimore’s starter on Tuesday at the Tigers, who gave up six runs in 1 1/3 innings.
Gausman, who finished 7-7 with a 3.57 ERA in 20 starts for the Orioles last season, gave up a leadoff single to Anthony Gose to start the game before inducing a double-play grounder. He then struck out J.D. Martinez to end his day’s work.
“First time to really get into a pre-game routine, so it felt pretty good,” the 24-year-old said. “Just good to get out there and compete.”
At this point in camp, Gausman said he was happy to hit 96 mph with his fastball.
“Really, that was the first time kind of letting it go,” he said. “Felt good overall. That’s all I really want to do right now is just pound the strike zone . . . then when it gets to be later in spring, be able to locate a little bit better.”
The Orioles are taking it slow with Gausman, who said he normally throws 7-8 bullpen sessions before coming to camp. This year the team told him to wait until he got to Sarasota.
“First time (the) guy pitched (last season) into October in his life,” Baltimore manager Buck Showalter said, “and taking a lot of precautions with a lot of guys, not just Gausman, to save our bullets as much as possible.
“Obviously we’ll start stretching him out as we go forward, see where the pitching staff takes us.”
After going scoreless against Gausman, T.J. McFarland and Dylan Bundy, the Tigers scored five runs off Chaz Roe and Ryan Webb to take a 5-0 lead after seven innings.
But the Orioles made it interesting, cutting the lead to 5-4 over the final two innings on an RBI single by Dariel Alvarez, Nolan Reimold’s two-run single, and a solo home run by Jayson Nix, who finished with two of the Orioles’ eight hits, as did shortstop J.J. Hardy.
The Orioles have split-squad games today and tonight, playing at the Tampa Bay Rays at 1:05 p.m., and hosting the Toronto Blue Jays at 7:05 p.m. Lefty Wei-Yin Chen starts against the Rays, while right-hander Miguel Gonzalez starts against the Jays. . . . Oriole legend Cal Ripken, Jr. will throw out tonight’s first pitch against the Jays, then sign copies of his new children’s book, Out at Home, on the Ed Smith lower concourse starting at 8. . . . The Orioles named former right-hander Ramon Martinez a special assignment pitching instructor. The brother of Pedro Martinez will focus on developing Latin American pitchers.
