BALTIMORE _ Manager Buck Showalter follows up just about every strong run by the Orioles with the warning that "momentum is only as good as your next starting pitcher," but he would rather not be proven right so easily.
The Orioles looked like they were ready to take on the world after coming back from one of their best road trips in recent memory, but they hit one of the soft spots in their rotation and squandered all that positive energy faster than you can say Yovani Gallardo in a 7-6 loss to the last-place Tampa Bay Rays before 19,233 at Oriole Park.
The last thing just about anybody at Camden Yards wanted to see Thursday night was Gallardo walking the first two batters of the game and then serving up a first-pitch three-run home run to Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, but that's how quickly a team can go from looking invincible to looking incomprehensible.
But that wasn't the half of it. The Orioles erased that ugly number with four runs in the bottom of the first inning, only to watch their veteran right-hander give up three hits in the second inning and two doubles in the third to re-establish a three-run Tampa Bay lead.
That's six runs in 31/3 innings. And Showalter indicated that Wade Miley would probably get the start Sunday.
Momentum is fragile when your starting rotation has such a soft underbelly.
Apparently, Showalter's momentum theory also can apply to the opposing pitcher. Left-hander Blake Snell allowed first-inning singles to Adam Jones and Manny Machado, and loaded the bases with an eight-pitch walk to Mark Trumbo. The Orioles flirted with a scoreless inning when Chris Davis looked at a called third strike, but Matt Wieters dunked a two-run single to left and red-hot J.J. Hardy banged a double off the center-field fence for two more runs. Just like that, the Orioles went from three runs down to a run up in a first inning that lasted more than a half-hour.
