The Oakland A's have lost just five series all year and just two of 10 road series in 2014. Can the
Orioles become the third team to pin a road series loss on the A's today?
Oakland has won seven, lost two and tied one road series. The two series losses came against American League East teams. Oakland went 1-2 at Boston from May 2-4 and 0-3 at Toronto from May 23-25. The A's have the best road record in the league, which is now 21-12 after Saturday night's loss.
Ubaldo Jimenez (2-6, 4.39 ERA) makes his 13th O's start today. He is winless at home, going 0-4 with a 5.72 ERA in five starts. In four career starts against the A's, Jimenez is 3-0 with a 3.09 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 23 1/3 innings.
Left-hander Scott Kazmir (6-2, 2.40) gets the start for Oakland. Kazmir is fourth in the AL in ERA for a team that leads the league in ERA at 2.95. Kazmir is also second in the AL in opponents' batting average at .215.
Over his last five starts, he is 2-1 with a 2.05 ERA. In 16 career starts against Baltimore, he is 5-5 with a 4.43 ERA.
Meanwhile, in an interview airing today during MASN's "O's Xtra" at 1 p.m., O's scouting director Gary Rajsich told me the club is close to signing several draft picks and these could be top 10 round picks.
Rajsich is quite happy with a draft that produced a lot of pitchers and several power arms in the top 10 rounds. We could get signing news on some of these picks as early as today.