Daniel Bard survived a rocky start Wednesday, only giving up five hits, but walking four and hitting one batter.
He walked away with the victory and some mixed feelings.
"It's really weird, man, they're not hitting the ball hard consistently off me. It's been like one home run in the past two games, a solo homer. Kinda just a struggle getting ahead in the count. My head's in a good place, you know, I feel confident out there, but I'm having trouble repeating the delivery at the same time. It's kinda... a little bit of the opposite of what I had a few outings before this where delivery was pretty much locked in and I just wasn't trusting the ball to the middle of the plate. That's where the walks came from. I feel like I'm in a good place, it's just a matter of finding that delivery that I can repeat consistently.
"I was out of the stretch so much in the first three or four innings, there was really no reason to start the innings out of the windup, cause obviously I was finding something at the end of those innings where I was able to repeat it a little better. So it was just something Valentine and McClure approached me with after the fourth inning... and they said, 'what do you think about just standing out of the stretch?' and I said, 'you know what, I'll try anything at this point' and I was able to repeat it a little bit better.
Bard improved his record to 4-5 with the win over the Baltimore Orioles.