Is Zach Britton Back?

Dominating.

That is the only word that can be used to explain Zach Britton’s last four starts.

In his last for outings, Britton is 4-0 with 0.94 ERA and has a K/BB ratio of 29/7. He has also been able to produce at least 10 groundball outs in each of his last four starts.

A big part of Britton’s success is being able to locate his fastball and sinker in the lower-half of the strike zone and the ability of his slider to become an out pitch.

The Blue Jays were absolutely fooled by his slider last night, and were unable to make good contact on any of his fastballs or sinkers.

This is the Zach Britton that Orioles fans were used to seeing in the first half of the 2011 season when Britton was arguably the Orioles best starter until June, when he hit a brick wall (not literally) and ended up on the DL with a strained left shoulder.

But the Britton of the 2011 first-half is back and possibly even better.

While Britton has a still needs to lower his WHIP, 1.44, his strikeout total is starting to increase, going from 5.66 K/9 last season to 7.96 this season.

In his last four starts he has lowered his ERA considerably, going from 6.23 on August 18^th to 4.15 as of September 5th.

Britton just needs to keep attacking hitters the way he has been, using his fastball, sinker, and slider. If he continues being aggressive on the mound and being able to locate his pitches, he will continue his dominant ways.

Britton is an integral part of the Orioles rotation right now and his recent success has helped vault the Orioles into a First Place tie with the ailing Yankees.

Hopefully Zach Britton will be able continue to build upon his recent success against American League hitters, because dominate performances will go a long way in bringing the Orioles the AL East title. 

The answer to if Zach Britton is back is yes. If he continues to pitch like this then he's more than back.

Recap of the Orioles/A’s Series and The Week Ahead

After losing the first 2 games of the series against the scorching-hot A’s, the Orioles, behind Wei-Yin Chen, were able to win the last game of the series 6 to 1. Chen pitched 5.2 innings and struck out 12. With the win, Chen improves to 9-6 on the year.

To recap the series the Orioles started the series against Oakland on Friday night, where Zach Britton faced off against A’s rookie right-hander Jarrod Parker. This game went back-and-forth, with the A’s getting off to a 5-0 lead by the 2^nd inning. However, the O’s rallied back with a homerun by Chris Davis in the 2^nd inning and a homerun by Adam Jones in the 5^th inning. Jones homerun put the O’s up 6-5. In the 6^th inning the A’s pinch hit Seth Smith for Johnny Gomes and Smith hit a base-clearing double to put the Athletics up 8-6. However, the O’s battled back in the 8^th inning and eventually took the lead 9-8. The A’s came up in the 9^th against O’s closer Jim Johnson, who has pitched extremely solid this season, and scored six runs off of him. The O’s fell 14-9.

In the second game of the series, Tommy Hunter squared off against Bartolo Colon. The game was kept scoreless until the 4^th inning, when smoking-hot A’s OF Yoenis Cespedes hit a two-run homerun off of Hunter. Hunter, who has been plagued by the long-ball all year, gave up another homerun to A’s 1B Chris Carter in the 6^th. The O’s lone run came in the 9^th inning when Nick Markakis homered.

Thankfully for the Orioles, Chen was able to put together a great outing today and Matt Wieters finally showed some sign of life with a three-run homerun in the 3^rd inning off of A’s success-story Travis Blackley. Recently-acquired Omar Quintanilla also homered for the O’s.

(Another note from the today’s game is that the Orioles started OF Lew Ford in left-field today and he batted 5^th. Ford hasn’t played in the big leagues since 2007, when he was a member of the Minnesota Twins. It’s great to see Ford make it all the way back to “The Show”.)

However, the two losses against Oakland did hurt the O’s in the Wild Card Standings. They are still 2.5 games back of Oakland and Anaheim.

The Orioles have some very crucial games in the upcoming week. If the O’s want to stay at the top of the playoff hunt they must win both series against the Yankees and the Rays.

The next week could really determine whether the O’s stay in the playoff hunt or return to their former ways of being at the bottom of the cellar in the AL East.