Can Brian Matusz Ever Regain What Made Him So Special at the End of 2010?

Right now, despite the Orioles doing relatively well so far this season, it is been apparent that there’s been an issue with the starting pitching outside of Jason Hammel and Wei-Yin Chen.


On Tuesday night, southpaw Brian Matusz struggled on the mound again in a loss to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He gave up five runs in five innings, plus gave up a career-high thirteen hits.

Matusz’s season has been filled with some ups and downs; however, we as fans have to start wondering if the bright young pitcher we saw at the end of an remarkable 2010 campaign will ever show up again?

At the end of that 2010 season, he was nothing short of phenomenal, winning seven games in the final two months and pitching to 2.18 ERA in the last two months. Well, we all know what happened to Matusz in 2011 and the results of his incredibly disastrous season – one of the worst ever for a starting pitcher in baseball history.

As the calendar turned to 2012, things looked better for Matusz. He made the team out of Spring Training and looked terrific at stretches during the first seventy-or-so-games of this season. Sadly, he has once again been terribly inconsistent on the mound and has lost four straight games. According to the Baltimore Sun, the southpaw in those four games has an ERA of 8.31, allowed 16 runs on 33 hits in a bit over 17 innings.

Not good.

Then again, Matusz had an incredible start against the Tampa Bay Rays on June 3rd. He only gave up a run in seven-plus innings pitched in that outing.
 
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