BALTIMORE -- Perfection? Not yet. Progress? Certainly.
Orioles rookie Dylan Bundy, who didn't allow a baserunner through the first five innings, pitched into the sixth for the first time in his career in Wednesday's 3-1 loss to the Rockies at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
"Dylan was really good. Solid," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said of Bundy, who was charged with three runs. "Got to get into another inning that he hadn't been into, got to throw a couple more pitches than he'd thrown. He was good. Just elevated a couple changeups. He was the reason we were in that game. Impressive."
Bundy took a perfect game into the sixth, retiring the first 16 batters until he walked Mark Reynolds. From there, Nick Hundley and David Dahl homered to end his night. While the righty was unable to finish the outing, there were still a lot of positives in his 5 2/3 innings.
"Just two mistakes -- changeups that were up in the zone, and they were able to tag them for homers," Bundy said. "Maybe just a little more focus or location a little bit better in the sixth inning and you get out of that with six innings pitched and no harm done."
Bundy, who made his third career start on Wednesday, said he is getting into more of a between-starts rhythm and admitted he has to learn to make adjustments better on the fly the third time through the order.
"Dylan is a watcher. He's an absorber," Showalter said. "He's alert. He watches his teammates. You can sit there and talk to him about something happening in the game and he'll know about it. He's soaking it in. He knows it's about more than just throwing. It's been fun to watch him grasp the things he's been exposed to and run with them."
Bundy, who threw a career-high 89 pitches, also had a career-high eight strikeouts, though he's not necessarily looking to be a high-strikeout guy.
"I don't look at it as impressive," Bundy said. "Strikeouts make your pitch count go up, and it's hard to go deep in the game when your pitch count is that high. So, I'm still working on getting ground balls from guys earlier in counts. It's a work in progress."