The Orioles enjoyed their trek to Toronto, taking three of four from a Blue Jays team that had won 21 of 28 games heading into that series. The Orioles outscored the Blue Jays 24-10 in the series. 

They left Canada with a 67-42 record and have now won four of five, eight of 12 and 18 of the last 25 games. They are 13-7 in the second half.

Tonight the Orioles play the New York Mets, and the Birds have lost their past two series against National League teams. They went 1-2 versus the Dodgers and Phillies, but they began the second half with a three-game sweep of Miami.

The Orioles are just 15-14 (.517) against NL teams but they are 52-28 (.650) against American League teams.

The Orioles pitched well at Rogers Centre, with their starting pitchers recording a 2.92 ERA in the four-game series while the bullpen allowed just one run in 10 1/3 innings. Over 35 innings at Toronto, Baltimore pitchers allowed 18 hits and 10 runs with 13 walks and 41 strikeouts.

TORONTO – You only get one chance to make a first impression. Right-hander Jack Flaherty, who had made 118 starts for the St. Louis Cardinals since the 2017 season, made a good one on his new Orioles teammates and fans throughout Birdland.

He was rolling, getting through the fifth in Toronto Thursday afternoon on 58 pitches. He had retired 15 in a row. But he got in trouble in the sixth and Vlad Guerrero Jr.’s single made it a 3-1 O’s lead and he walked a man to load the bases. But given a chance to pitch out of that big jam, he did, getting Matt Chapman swinging on a big breaking curveball and Alejandro Kirk to fly out on a breaking ball.

His new manager had the confidence to let him try and get out of that jam.

“Means a lot,” Flaherty said of that trust. “Go out and make pitches and let me get through that. Walked (George) Springer but made some good pitches and was able to execute with Chapman and Kirk there. Nice to have that trust and my job is to continue to make pitches until he takes the ball from me.”

Allowing just one run over six innings on 92 pitches, Flaherty seems fired up to be an Oriole so far. He had not touched 97 mph with his fastball all year and then he did that in his first inning.

TORONTO – Jack Flaherty’s Orioles debut got off to a rocky start today. But it quickly got better. And it mostly stayed that way, especially thanks to some clutch pitching from the right-hander in the last of the sixth. 

Flaherty allowed one run and four hits over six innings on 92 pitches as the Orioles beat Toronto 6-1 to win three of four in this series at Rogers Centre.

The Orioles (67-42) are 8-2 this year versus Toronto. Their AL East lead grows to two games over idle Tampa Bay.

Since July 20, the Orioles have gone 3-1 in both four-game series against their closest pursuers in the Rays and Jays. They also went 2-1 against the Yankees in that span. They are now 22-10 in their past 32 games over the last 10 AL East series, going 8-0-2 in those series.

“Complete team," Flaherty said of the Orioles. "You kind of new that coming in and you get around them and see what they’re about. They are a complete team. Offense, defense, pitching – they can do it all.”

TORONTO – After the Orioles got just one run over six innings in losing 4-1 last night to Toronto and lefty Yusei Kikuchi, they face another top starting pitcher today in former Oriole right-hander Kevin Gausman. 

After winning Monday and Tuesday, the O’s lost last night and now are 66-42 but once again lead the American League East. They are 1.5 games ahead of Tampa Bay for the eighth straight day after the Rays’ 7-2 loss to the Yankees.

The Orioles lead third-place Toronto by 6.5 games and are nine games ahead of Boston and 10 up on New York.

Even if the Orioles lose today and split this series, this will be the 10^th straight AL East series where the O’s won or tied the series and didn't lose it. They went 7-0-2 in the previous nine. They are 23-14 for the year in AL East games and 21-10 in 31 games over these last 10 division series.

Toronto has lost six straight AL East series and needs a win today to avoid losing this one. Toronto (60-49) has won six of its last 10 and 15 of 24 games overall. The Blue Jays are 34-24 (.586) over their past 58 games.

TORONTO – He had three lights out games before last night, but his performance Wednesday led directly to the Orioles’ 4-1 loss against Toronto. Manager Brandon Hyde is trying to figure out how reliever Shintaro Fujinami can become more consistent with his command and control. And pitch without feeling too much pressure as well.

In three games before this one, he had thrown 4 2/3 scoreless with seven strikeouts. Then he came on in the sixth with two on and two outs and walked his first batter and then hit two in a row as Toronto took the lead without getting a hit.

“It’s a balancing act. You just try to do the best you can," said Hyde. "There is no real soft landing in the big leagues. Especially in August and you are trying to win and most of our games are close. It’s not ’19, ‘20 or ’21 here now. We’re trying to win games. And you do the best you can to try and put guys in position to have success. Try to have good conversations. Try to make guys relax as much as possible and make them feel good about themselves. Try to give them confidence as much as possible. But it’s their job to perform. We’re looking for guys that can help us win right now."

Right-hander Jack Flaherty (7-6, 4.43 ERA) makes his O’s debut today after the club acquired him Tuesday just minutes ahead of the trade deadline.

Flaherty went 3-1 with a 3.03 ERA and 1.416 WHIP in five July starts. In 13 starts since he gave up 10 runs in an early May game, he is 5-2 with a 3.58 ERA over 75 1/3 innings. He has six quality starts in that span.

TORONTO – Right-hander Jack Flaherty, who will make his O’s debut today, he has faced the Toronto Blue Jays just once before in his career. And it was this year.

On April 1, no fooling, he pitched five no-run, no-hit innings as St. Louis beat Toronto 4-1. He walked seven, but none scored and fanned four in a 95-pitch outing.

While he is 7-6 with a 4.43 ERA for the year, he is 5-2 with a 3.58 ERA over his last 13 starts and 75 1/3 innings. He had a 6.29 ERA in early May before this stretch began.

What got his season turned around at that point?

“Doing the simple things right,” he said yesterday at Rogers Centre. “I don’t think I was doing that early on. Starting with fastball command. Walks added up. Been able to limit those a lot more and things have gotten a lot better.”

TORONTO – For an Orioles team that had been playing so well in moving into first place in the American League East, this night was a stark contrast to many recent ones.

O’s pitching and defense allowed Toronto to score three runs on no hits in the last of the sixth to break a 1-1 tie. And the Blue Jays went on to beat the Orioles 4-1 at Rogers Centre, taking the third game of this series.

The Orioles (66-42) maintain their 1.5 game lead on Tampa Bay, which lost to the Yankees. 

The Jays sixth started with right-hander Grayson Rodriguez having a sharp night riding. He sailed through the first three innings and had a two-hitter through five on 75 pitches. He was in a 1-1 tie.

And then he got the first two batters out but walked Brandon Belt on six pitches. Then he had a long duel with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., but after five foul balls, walked him on the 10^th pitch. Manager Brandon Hyde went to the bullpen for Shintaro Fujinami, who had thrown 4 2/3 scoreless innings with seven strikeouts his past three games.

TORONTO – The Orioles are unbeaten at the Rogers Centre this year, going 5-0 thus far in a ballpark where the 2018 Orioles went 0-10. A win tonight would give Baltimore another series win in the third game of this four-game series between American League East rivals. 

The Orioles pulled out a close win on Monday, taking the opener 4-2, and last night they routed the Blue Jays 13-3 while getting six extra-base hits among 16 hits. They scored three runs early and scored 10 from the sixth through the ninth innings.

Gunnar Henderson’s solo homer, No. 18, put the Orioles ahead 4-3 in the sixth, and they poured it on from there. Henderson added a two-run single an inning later, part of a four-RBI game. Anthony Santander was 3-for-4 and his grand slam in the eighth opened an eight-run lead, which grew to 10 on Ryan McKenna’s two-run single off Jordan Hicks in the ninth.

The Orioles are 7-1 this year against Toronto, outscoring them by 27 runs at 53-26. The Orioles have scored 6.63 runs per game in the season series, batting .298 with an .854 OPS against a Toronto pitching staff that ranks fourth in the AL with a 3.84 ERA. O’s pitchers have an ERA of 3.00 in the eight games versus Toronto hitters.

The Orioles have won three straight games, outscoring the Yankees and Blue Jays 26-8.

TORONTO – Acquired by the Orioles just ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline for three minor league players, right-hander Jack Flaherty was activated and joined the Orioles today.

He will make his debut with his new club in Thursday’s series finale in Toronto at 3:07 p.m.

“It’s awesome. These guys have been playing unbelievable for them to be in first place,” Flaherty said of his new teammates today in his first interview as an Oriole. “To be playing the way they have all year, it’s special. Really lucky to come in here and join these guys.”

Flaherty went 7-6 with a 4.43 ERA in 20 starts for St. Louis. But since giving up 10 runs in a May 4 start against the Angels, he is 5-2 with a 3.58 ERA over his last 13 starts. He will wear No. 15 for the Orioles.

“Season is full of ups and downs," he said. "You get some rough ones and some good ones. I’ve done this it a little bit, and you learn from the ones that are rough. I’ve ironed some things out. It’s about performing now. Looking forward to these next couple of months.”

TORONTO - I don't know what will happen in the final two games of this series. But in the first two we have seen more of what we've seen for most of this 2023 season - the Orioles are pretty great in division games and Toronto is pretty lousy.

With Tuesday's 13-3 blowout - a rare laugher for the Orioles - they are now 23-13 (.639) in AL East games and Toronto is 7-22 (.241).

A team playing at that O's win percentage over a full year would win 103 games and at Toronto's percentage just 39.

But there is more.

The Orioles lost their first two AL East series of the year and Toronto won its first two. So, the Orioles are 21-9 in the division in the last 10 series counting this one and they have not lost a single series in that run.

TORONTO – On the night the Orioles acquired another starter for the stretch drive – getting right-hander Jack Flaherty from St. Louis – current starter Kyle Bradish could not hold an early 3-0 lead.

But for the 2023 Orioles, that was not a problem. Not at all.

Gunnar Henderson hit a go-ahead homer in the sixth, hot-hitting Ryan Mountcastle drove in two more runs and Anthony Santander hit his second career grand slam as the Orioles whipped Toronto 13-3 to improve to 66-41 on the year. They are now 5-0 this season at Rogers Centre and are a season-high 25 games over the .500 mark.

The Orioles have now gone 10 straight American League East series without losing one, their longest streak since 11 in a row from Aug. 1-Sept. 30, 2012. The Orioles are 21-9 (.700) in their past 30 division games in this run of winning.

The 3-3 tie was erased when they scored one in the sixth, three in the seventh and four runs in the eighth. They added two in the ninth for 10 unanswered runs after the 3-3 tie. 

TORONTO – As the Orioles look for another American League East win tonight, they will face Toronto left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu, who is making his season debut and pitching in the majors for the first time since June 1, 2022.

In that game he gave up three runs over four innings versus the Chicago White Sox, and later that month needed Tommy John surgery. He pitched just 27 innings last year, going 2-0 with a 5.67 ERA in six games before his surgery.

He makes his return tonight and the Blue Jays say they will temporarily go with a six-man rotation to give their other starters an extra day's rest.

Ryu pitched in four minor league rehab games, two at Triple-A, and allowed an ERA of 2.00. In 18 innings he allowed 13 hits with one walk, 16 strikeouts and 0.778 WHIP.

Over the weekend he pitched a final bullpen session as a tune-up for tonight.

TORONTO – Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said the immediate plan for right-hander Tyler Wells, who was optioned to Double-A Bowie after Saturday night’s game, is still being formulated. But Wells will spend some time at the team's pitching lab in Bel Air in Harford County.

"It's still being mapped out," said Hyde. "He's going to go to our lab. The main thing is a little bit of rest. Get him backed off and allow the body a chance to recuperate. Give him a breather and not throw as much. Go to the lab, maybe work on some mechanical things. And then kind of slowly get him back to where we want him to be. But it's mainly about giving him more of a reset, and hopefully he can be a big part of our pitching the staff the last month, month and a half of the season."

As we got to the All-Star break Wells had an ERA of 3.18, and it was 2.83 in his last eight starts leading up to the break.

But over his past three starts his ERA is 11.00 over nine innings and he's allowed 2.11 WHIP. He has given up four homers and nine walks while getting eight strikeouts. Opponents have hit .278 with a 1.069 OPS.

Ryan Mountcastle drove in three runs last night with a two-run double and a sac fly. Mountcastle is a career .313/.371/.625/.996 hitter in 46 games versus Toronto, with 15 homers and 39 RBIs.

TORONTO - After he threw yet another quality start for the Orioles last night - as they beat Toronto in the series opener - right-hander Kyle Gibson discussed today's trade deadline.

He told reporters if nothing big happens today, he is fine with it. He loves the current group in the Orioles' clubhouse and sees enough talent there right now to keep winning.

“In 2018 we (the Twins) traded away eight players at the deadline," he said. "Never seen that many traded away. And at the time, we might have been three games out of the wild card. There are teams that absolutely need to play well around the deadline, but I don’t think this is one of those teams. I think we just want to play well to keep going in the right direction.”

He said it's important that players have been able to block out any deadline distractions this year.

“Very important. It’s easy to look around and see moves and get anxious, get antsy. Wait to see where the dominoes will fall for us. Do we have needs? Sure. Are there players that could make our team better? Sure. But I think we have a really darn good team and if we don’t make this massive splash, I think this team is really good. I think the Fuji trade (adding Shintaro Fujinami) is really big for us. The flexibility he adds in the bullpen is huge.

TORONTO – When the Orioles played in Toronto in May, they swept a three-game series at Rogers Centre. It was their first sweep at the place since April 22-24, 2005. They returned tonight to find out if they could win again at a ballpark where O’s wins over many years were scarce.

The Orioles were also looking to build on their series win over the weekend against the Yankees and see if they could take another American League East series. Since mid-April, they are 7-0-2 in nine series within the division.

And they got a nice headstart on winning another tonight with early offense and a Gunnar Henderson longball to lead 4-0. They beat Toronto 4-2 to improve to 65-51 with their eighth win in 12 games and 16^th in the past 22 contests.

The Orioles remain leading the AL East by 1 1/2 games over the Rays, who won against the Yankees. 

The Orioles are 24-11 in series-opening games and 14-4 in road series openers.

TORONTO – The Rogers Centre used to be a place where the Orioles came to often lose. But the 2023 Orioles are different. They came here in May and swept three from the Blue Jays by scores of 6-2, 6-5 in 10 innings and 8-3 in 11 innings. 

It was a stunning result when you consider the O’s had not swept three at Toronto since April 22-24, 2005. They had not swept an American League East series since taking three from the Red Sox at Fenway Park on April 2-4, 2021.

In the 2018 season, the Orioles went 0-10 in Toronto.

As the teams begin a new four-game series tonight in Toronto, it’s a big series with the Blue Jays playing better baseball and hoping to still make a run for the top spot in the division. This is their chance to gain on the Orioles.

The Blue Jays (59-47) lost in 10 innings 3-2 to the Angels on Sunday, but they are 5-2 their past seven games and 14-7 over the last 21 games. In their past 55 games, Toronto is 33-22 and playing .600 ball.

TORONTO – Japanese right-hander Shintaro Fujinami entered in the sixth inning last night and pitched two scoreless in the Orioles' win over the Yankees. His fastball again touched 100 mph and his splitter got swings and misses at 93 mph.

That is three straight scoreless with the Orioles for Fujinami, who will continue to get action in high-leverage spots.

“The way he is throwing the ball the last few times, it’s going to be in big spots,” manager Brandon Hyde said today in advance of the series opener at Toronto. “He’s got incredible stuff. A fantastic arm. He showed it again last night with two really good innings. If he can be kind of that bridge guy to Félix (Bautista) it would be fantastic. But his last few appearances, he’s shown great stuff and we’re excited about him.”

The 29-year-old Fujinami was scored on in his first two Baltimore appearances. But his last three have produced 4 1/3 scoreless innings on one hit with seven strikeouts and a .330 OPS against. Last night he got four whiffs on six swings against his splitter.

Would Hyde consider extending him to three innings in some games?

It does confound some analysts. The Orioles, while ranking 10^th in MLB in run differential, are second in the sport in winning percentage.

Just how are they doing that?

Winning a lot of close games is how.

Ironically, when the Orioles returned to the playoffs in 2012 after a 14-year drought, they won a lot of close games. That team had a plus seven run differential for the year but won 93 games. Yep, 93 while barely outscoring the opponents for the year.

O’s second baseman Adam Frazier isn’t too worried about the run differential totals as much as the win total.

The Orioles and New York Yankees will play tonight to wrap up this series and their 2023 season series. The clubs will not meet again this year after tonight.

The Orioles blanked New York 1-0 Friday night on Anthony Santander’s walk-off home run in the last of the ninth. New York won 8-3 last night as right-hander Tyler Wells allowed three runs over 2 2/3 innings in his third straight ineffective outing. Ryan Mountcastle hit a solo homer Saturday night, his 13^th.

The Orioles (63-41) have lost three of four games and are 6-6 over their past 12 games. They are 31-21 at home and 15-9 in July. They are about to close out their fourth straight winning month of the season, fifth if you count going 1-0 in March.

The Orioles need a win tonight to keep an impressive streak going. They have not lost an American League East series since April 9, when they started 0-2 in division series. Since then they are 6-0-2, with the winner of this series to be determined by tonight’s game.

The last time the Orioles had a streak longer than eight consecutive non-losing division series was 11 in a row from Aug. 1-Sept. 30, 2012. This run has seen the Orioles winning series versus Boston, Tampa Bay, Toronto, New York and Toronto. They then split series at Tampa Bay and New York before going 3-1 against the Rays last weekend.

The trade deadline is fast approaching. It is Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET and we are getting real close now.

The deadline has seemed to not be a big topic in the O’s clubhouse this year, and one reason may be the team’s desire to be buyers this time and not sellers.

O’s executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said Friday he is not looking to trade from the current 26-man roster, but he could not rule it out. Still, an O’s deal or deals, barring a surprise, would be one where the club deals a prospect or more for current major league talent.

Asked again Saturday about the deadline and whether it impacts his club, manager Brandon Hyde indicated it really does not and has not.

“The trade deadline is there and everyone knows that date," he said. "But we are focused on the Yankees and their good pitching staff, and they’ve always been a tough team. … I don’t think any of our guys are thinking about the trade deadline right now. Think they are worrying about winning this series."