BALTIMORE � There was a lot of game left when Orioles ace Chris Tillman walked off the mound in the third inning Saturday night, but nothing that happened after that really mattered.
The Houston Astros were up by five runs and Tillman would be charged with another before his pitching line was final, but that didn't matter either. The only thing that mattered in the wake of his team's 12-2 loss at Oriole Park was whether the shoulder problem that delayed his latest start three days was more serious than previously suspected.
That wasn't clear and probably won't be for a while, but there was certainly room for concern after he displayed diminished velocity and a decided lack of command while giving up two runs in each of the first three innings. He walked five. He threw 67 pitches in two-plus innings and more of them were balls than strikes. He looked very much like a guy with a sore shoulder.
Maybe Tillman just had a bad night, but when your best starting pitcher and one of the best setup relievers in the game (Darren O'Day) both come up with shoulder problems at this late stage in the American League playoff hunt, you've got to wonder whether your karma just got T-boned.
Tillman (15-5) is not only the winningest pitcher on the club by far, but he also has been the stopper who came into Saturday with an 8-1 record this year pitching after an Orioles loss. Losing him for an extended period � especially with recently acquired left-hander Wade Miley struggling badly � would be a tremendous blow to a club that appeared to be stabilizing its inconsistent starting rotation.
Miley's brief outing in Friday night's lopsided loss exhausted the Orioles' long-relief crew, forcing the front office to option right-hander Tyler Wilson after that game and recall Cuban pitcher Odrisamer Despaigne.
Manager Buck Showalter hoped that he would not need another multi-pitcher long-relief effort after the way the Astros battered Ubaldo Jimenez, Wilson and Vance Worley in that 15-8 fiasco, but Saturday was pretty much another worst-case scenario.
Tillman was in trouble from the start, giving up a single to leadoff hitter George Springer at the outset and immediately surrendering a two-run homer to third baseman Alex Bregman. Twelve of the 17 batters who faced Tillman reached base.
Despaigne came on to get the Orioles out of a big jam in the third, but he eventually would fall victim to a Houston lineup that has scored 32 runs in the first three games of this four-game series. With the loss, the Orioles (67-55) fell 2 { games behind the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.
The series concludes Sunday when veteran Yovani Gallardo (4-4) takes the mound against left-hander Dallas Keuchel (7-12).
