The Orioles brought up twenty-two year old Kevin Gausman, who was the 4th overall pick out of LSU in last years First-Year Player Draft, Tuesday to make his major league debut in Toronto. Gausman pitched five innings gave up seven hits, four earned runs, two walks and struck out five batters tonight but still earned the loss in his first start in the majors. With no help from the bullpen the Orioles got wacked by the Blue Jays 12-6 on the same night as Orioles skipper Buck Showalter’s 57th birthday.

This season Kevin Gausman has not thrown more than 80 pitches in a game coming into this matchup. Leading 3-2 going into the bottom of the 5th inning Gausman was just nearing his pitch count limit when he gave up the go-ahead two-run homer to Jays catcher J.P. Arencibia. The Orioles bullpen tonight, combind of three pitchers, threw a total of 78 pitches and less than 49 percent of them were strikes. They gave up eight runs (six of them earned) in just three innings while Kevin Gausman’s 89 pitches were 65 percent strikes in five innings and only leading to four runs. Unfortunately one of the times the Orioles relievers found the strike zone is when reliever Pedro Strop gave up a grand slam to Toronto’s Edwin Encarnacion who this season when facing the O’s has three homers and eight RBI’s.

Some highlights from the O’s tonight were third baseman Manny Machado going 3 for 4 with three doubles and two RBI’s making him the leader in doubles in the whole league. Orioles Nick Markakis, Adam Jones, and Chris Davis also added solo home runs in this game, Markakis extended his hit streak to eight games with that homer. Davis’ home run was his thirteenth career homer against Toronto and he has now hit six home runs in his last thirteen games. Blue Jays starter Brandon Morrow earned the win pitching seven innings giving up ten hits, six earned runs, one walk and five strikeouts, but he gave up three homers which he displayed being upset about by throwing a tantrum in the duggout after he came out of the game.

The second game of this three game series will be played tomorrow 7:07 pm at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. Probables for this game will be Chris Tillman (BAL 3-2 3.52 ERA) vs. Sean Nolin (TOR 0-0 0.00 ERA), Nolin will be making his major league debut for the Blue Jays.

Baltimore came into this early afternoon game with an interleague record of 30-19 dating back to 2008. The Padres, since April 30th this season, have scored 32 of their last 55 runs when there have been two outs. Today they scored five of their eight total runs in this game with two outs as they defeat the O’s by a score of 8-4 and take both games of the two game series.

Orioles veteran pitcher Freddy Garica, who started off this season with the Padres spending Spring Training with them before getting cut, had done well in interleague play in the past with a record of 24-10 and an ERA of 2.83. He had also done well when facing the Padres going 4-2 with a 2.51 ERA. Those stats didn’t seem to show today as Garcia only went three and two-thirds innings giving up seven hits, four earned runs and two walks on 75 pitches, earning his second loss of the season. In Garcia’s last two starts he had pitched at least six innings both times but has still not thrown more than 80 pitches in a start.

Padres veteran pitcher Jason Marquis, despite being very hot for the Padres this season had never done well whenever pitching against the O’s with a lifetime record of 0-1 with a 9.92 ERA. Marquis showed the O’s why opposing batters are only hitting .220 against him by pitching five innings only giving up two earned runs earning him his fourth straight win despite giving up seven hits and four walks. Padres center fielder Alexi Amarista went 3-5 with two doubles, three runs scored and a two-run homer in the seventh and shortstop Everth Cabrera went 4-5 with four singles and one RBI.

Some Oriole highlights from this game are third baseman Manny Machado going 4-5 with a career-high three doubles, extending his hit streak to five games. Also shortstop J.J. Hardy extended his eleven game hit streak by hitting a solo home run in the second inning. Nick Markakis and Adam Jones both had multi-hit games with an RBI each and Matt Wieters also added a solo home run.

Questions to be asked right now are: Is Freddy Garcia going to remain in the rotation? Will this day off on Thursday be good for the O’s? And When will Buck Showalter seriously consider doing something about the terribly slumping Ryan Flaherty who struck out three times in a row today and has been batting under .200 for almost a month?

The Orioles next game is Friday 7:05 PM/ET when they open up a three game series at home hosting the Tampa Bay Rays. Probable starters for Friday’s game are Jeremy Hellickson and Jason Hammel.

Baltimore came into this day game to face a Toronto Blue Jays team that had lost six of their last eight coming into this game, only scoring more than four runs once since April 12th. Toronto had scored three or fewer runs in 13 out the 21 games played so far this season before today, and had only recorded five or fewer hits in five of those games. That was not the case today as the O’s fell to the Blue Jays in 11 innings by a score of 6-5 in which the Blue Jays ended the game with eight total hits, four of them being home runs.

The O’s started an emergency pitcher for this game, Josh Stinson, a 25 year-old right hander who was called up from Double-A Frederick less than 24 hours before the game. Stinson had not started a game since October 3rd of last season for the Brewers where he gave up one run in four innings when the Brewers were facing the Padres. The O’s claimed him off waivers from the Oakland Athletics on April 4th, he has spent the last year and a half in four different organizations (New York Mets, Milwaukee, Oakland and now Baltimore). Stinson pitched five and two-thirds innings giving up five earned runs, including the Blue Jays four home runs, but still earned a no decision thanks to the Orioles offense who battled back to tie the game.

Orioles left fielder Nate McLouth, who had not gotten a hit off Blue Jay’s starter Brandon Morrow in six at-bats in the previous five years, went 2 for 3 with a double, single, an RBI, two walks and a stolen base. Second baseman Ryan Flaherty and third baseman Manny Machado both drove in RBI’s in the seventh to tie the game and the bullpen helped hold the tie to go into extra innings. Between the two bullpens in this game they pitched a combind total of 10.0 innings (O’s: 5.1 and TOR 4.2).

O’s closer Jim Johnson, who was pitching past his usual pitching limit pitching two innings, walked in the go-ahead run for the Blue Jays in the eleventh and earned the loss in this contest to cost the O’s the sweep in this series. When the O’s went to bat in the 11th with two outs they sent Chris Dickerson to pinch-hit, why wouldn’t they have just sent Matt Wieters to hit off the bench? The next game for the O’s will be a late game as they square off in Oakland with the Athletics for a four game series. Tomorrow’s game will be at 10:05 PM/ET and the pitching mathcup will be Jason Hammel facing off against Jerrod Parker.

The Washington Capitals, who have been hot lately coming into this game with an eight game winning streak fell to the Ottawa Senators by a score of 3-1 being their streak to a hault. Ottawa, who is usually successful at home (14-3-3), showed the Caps tonight why they are one of the teams to watch out for going into the end of the season and the playoffs. This game tonight was the second time the Caps lost to the Senators this season.

Washington gave up two open net goals, one on purpose and one by accident. The accident goal was back in the second period when Caps goalie Braden Holtby came out of the goal to play the puck when he shouldn’t have, passing the puck to the other team and allowing a goal and the purpose goal was when the Caps pulled Holtby in the third period. In the last 18 games before tonight the Caps had outscored the opposition in the second period 31-10, tonight they were outscored in the second 2-1.

Capitals captain and winger Alex Ovechkin’s streak of consecutive road games with a goal, which was nine road games, came to an end tonight. The lone goal for the Capitals in this game came by Mike Ribeiro in the second period making it his 13th of the season. Senators goalie Craig Anderson recorded 18 saves and now improves to 6-5-1 when facing the Capitals.

The next matchup for the Caps will on Saturday 7:00 PM in Montreal when the they will face off with the Canadians.

In tonight’s Orioles-Rays game, which ended in a 6-2 Orioles loss, Orioles center fielder Adam Jones helped contribute to each of the two team’s scores. Jones drove in the O’s only two runs on a two-run homer in the third and also made two bad decisions in the field. He allowed a two run double in the fourth inning by overplaying a line drive hit by the Rays James Loney and then made a throwing mistake before that, which turned a Shelley Duncan single into a double, putting runners into scoring position. These caused the Rays to break the tie and take control of the rest of the game.

What is happening with Adam Jones in the field? This is not what to expect from a returning Gold Glover. During the weekend series with the Yankees he made a terrible error on a fly ball that should’ve been easily caught, which turned into a three run error and cost the Orioles the game. Also in an earlier home game with the Twins Jones made a miscommunication error with left fielder Nolan Reimold to allow a hit that should’ve been an out also leading to runs for the other team. Jones however has been excelling in batting, he and Chris Davis coming into this game had a .717 slugging percentage, Jones has batted .400 against Rays pitcher Matt Moore in the past.

O’s pitcher Chris Tillman earned his first loss of the season going five innings giving up six hits, four runs, two walks and striking out six, he now goes to 1-4 against Tampa Bay in his career. Rays pitcher Matt Moore, who had not given up a run in his first two starts of the season, gave up two runs but earned the win only giving up five hits and striking out seven Oriole batters. The Rays broke a streak of eleven straight games with fewer than ten hits in a game tonight by recording eleven. One Orioles high point tonight was that right fielder Nick Markakis had a base hit in the first inning and has now reached base in each of the 14 games played so far this season.

This loss puts the O’s at .500 with a record of 7-7 and forces a rubber game in this series. The O’s next game is tomorrow 7:05 PM ET, the probable pitchers will be David Price (TB) 0-1 5.82 ERA facing Miguel Gonzalez (BAL) 1-1 2.92 ERA.

The Washington Caps opened up a three game homestand against the Carolina Hurricanes, this being their last meeting for the season. Going into this game Carolina had lost nine of their last ten and have gone 1-12-1 since March 14th. It was all Capitals in this contest as they win over the Hurricanes 3-1 making it their sixth straight victory and their tenth in their last twelve games.

After two games off Capitals goalie Braden Holtby was poised to return to his steller prior performance where he had posted a record of 16-7-1 with four shutouts, a 2.32 goals allowed average, and a .926 save percentage. Tonight he made career history for himself by recording 44 saves, a regular season personal best, against this Hurricane team that has lost some of it’s luster. The Hurricanes outshot the Caps the whole game but just couldn’t manage to get enough goals past the Washington wall that is Braden Holtby.

Right winger for the Caps Troy Brouwer scored two of Washington’s three goals, one being on an open netter, for his 14th and 15th goals of the season, Mike Green scored the other goal for the Caps. Caps left winger Wojtek Wolski recorded an assist which was the first point he had recorded since March 7th when the Caps blew out the Panthers 7-1. Jay Beagle also ended his points drought with an assist making it his first point since March 21st.

With this win the Capitals have now gone 13-1-0 in their last 14 games against the Southeast Division. The season series between these two teams ended tonight 4-1-0 in favor of the Capitals. The Caps next game is on Saturday night at Verizion Center where they will take on another division rival the Tampa Bay Lightning.

In this game, which was Boston’s home opener, the Orioles were defeated by the Red Sox by a score of 3-1 making it the O’s third straight loss. The O’s have not had a three game losing streak since July 23rd-25th of the 2012 season when they lost one to Cleveland and two to Tampa Bay, being outscored in runs by a total 16-3. This loss now drops the Orioles to a record of three wins and four losses, the last time the O’s were under .500 was the last game of the 2011 season.

In the season series between these two teams last year Baltimore was the more successful team going 13-5 against Boston, 7-2 at Fenway Park, but that was not the case this time. Baltimore bats were silenced and weaken in this contest striking out eleven times which is just over 40 percent of the outs in a baseball game. Of those eleven strikeouts eight of them came from the Red Sox’ Clay Buchholtz who has always given the O’s trouble in the past having a record of 7-3 with a 3.64 ERA and 58 strikeouts against them in the last ten years. He earned the win making it his second this season pitching seven scoreless innings only giving up three hits and four walks. One bright spot in Baltimore’s lineup was Adam Jones, who although lost his consecutive multi-hit game streak at four games, hit his first home run of the season for the O’s.

Orioles starter Wei-Yin Chen, who was 2-0 last season when facing the Red Sox, battled with Buchholtz and made it a pitching duel, but one big mistake can really make a difference in how the game turns out. Boston’s Daniel Nada went 2 for 2 in this game with a three run home run in the seventh inning that broke the game open for the Red Sox. Chen would earn his first loss of the season and the first loss of his career against Boston, he pitched six and one third innings giving up five hits, three runs, two walks and recorded three strikeouts.

Boston improves to 4-2 on the year which is the first time since 2006 that they have started out the season with a record like that. The Orioles and Red Sox have tomorrow off but will regroup and continue this series on Wednesday at 7:10 ET.

The Washington Capitals came back tonight to Verizion Center after a three game road trip, nine of their last eleven have been on the road. Washington attempted to avoid being swept by the New York Islanders for the season for the first time since 1981-82 and succeeded. Thanks to an Alex Ovechkin goal in a shootout the Caps prevailed over the Islanders by a score of 2-1 and now move on up to first place in the Southeast Division for the first time this season.

The first goal of the game and only goal for a while came from Capitals defencemen Mike Green late in the first period, Green extended his consecutive goal streak to four games. Green also leads the league in even strength goals by a defencemen with seven this season. The Caps defeated Islanders veteran goalie Evgeni Nabokov who has always been unstoppable against the Washington with a record of 12-1-2 with two shutouts, averaging 2.17 goals allowed and having a .924 save percentage in 15 career starts before tonight.

Newly acquired Capitals right wing Martin Erat made his debut for the Caps tonight, he only managed to record three hits in 14:43 of ice time. Erat, a long time star of the Nashville Predators was acquired in a trade on Wednesday of this week in which Erat and minor league center Michael Latta were sent to Washington in exchange for Caps top draft pick Filip Forsberg. Erat has scored at least 49 points in each of his eight years in the league.

The Caps next game is scheduled for Saturday night in Florida in which they will face the Panthers, game time is 7:30ET. The Panthers are coming off a shootout victory over Tampa Bay on Tuesday 3-2.

The Baltimore Orioles’ incredible turnaround playoff season last year gave fans hope and new expectations for this season, which is also the Orioles 60th season. After everything that had happened last year, this offseason and this spring everything is up for grabs now in the AL East. In the O’s opening day game with the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field they played to everyone’s expectations winning by a score of 7-4. It was sort of a big accomplishment because the Rays are usually unstoppable at Tropicana Field or “The Trop” as some call it, the Rays are 251-154 since 2008 there, they are second for a team winning at home behind the Yankees.

O’s starting pitcher Jason Hammel pitched well despite losing the lead back in the sixth giving up an RBI double and a sac fly. His team would regain the lead in seventh to help him earn the win, he pitched six innings giving up only three hits and three runs. The Tampa Bay Rays are the team who originally drafted and developed Hammel. Orioles closer and all-time save leader Jim Johnson earned his first save of the 2013 season in this game as well.

There were many stars in the Baltimore batting lineup during this game, one being All-Star, Gold Glove catcher Matt Wieters who started off his 2013 season with a two-run home run off reigning AL Cy Young winner David Price who would leave the game with a no decision. Wieters going into this game has had much success facing left-handers batting .323, he finished the day 2 for 3 with a double, a home run and two RBI’s. A couple more stars were All-Star center fielder Adam Jones who went 3 for 5 with two doubles and two RBI’s and first basemen Chris Davis who hit a three run home run off Tampa Bay reliever Jake McGee, who would ended up earning the loss, back in the seventh. Orioles left fielder Nolan Reimold also had a mulit-hit game after not playing since April 30th of last season.

A couple of individual milestones were made by the O’s in this opening day game. Second basemen Brian Roberts, who batted ninth instead of leadoff as he used to, started his 9th opening day for the O’s which is the most on the active roster. Much publicized third basemen Manny Machado, who believe it or not batted second in the lineup, became the 4th Oriole to start an opening day game at age 20 or younger. He joins Oriole alumnists Brooks Robinson, Wally Bunker and Boog Powell.

The next game of this series is tomorrow Wednesday at 7:10 ET. The probable pitchers for this game will be Wei-Yin Chen (BAL) vs. Jermey Hellickson (TB).

Capitals Brooks Laich, Mike Green, and Dmitry Orlov had not all played together at the same time this season until last night when the Caps won on the road in Winnipeg 4-0. Before that game last night the Caps had only won four games on the road. This trio proves to be the key to winning road games as the Caps defeat the Jets in Winnipeg again 6-1.

Brooks Laich scored his first goal of the season after scoring his first point of the season last night which was an assist against the Jets. Defencemen Dmitry Orlov also scored his first point of the season since coming back to the Caps Tuesday night. Washington captain Alex Ovechkin scored two of the Caps six goals tonight and now has scored a goal in four straight games. Five different Capital players had a goal tonight.

Capitals goalie Braden Holtby, who has been doing well against Southeast Division teams lately winning seven of his last eight starts against them going into tonight, shuting out Winnipeg twice on the road before tonight, recorded 30 saves for Washington. Holtby actually became the first Caps goalie Thursday night to shut out two games facing the same team in the same season since Olie Kolzig did it to Montreal in the 1999-00 season. Speaking of goalies Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec was starting tonight, playing in back-to-back games. Pavelec has played back-to-back games four times this season going 2-2 during them, and tonight he was pulled out of the game for the second time this season in a back-to-back game.

The Caps now improve to 14-2-0 when scoring three or more goals, so I guess scoring three or more is their magic number. When scoring two or less goals the Caps are 0-14-1. Next game for the Caps is Sunday as they face the Rangers in New York at 7:00pm ET.