O's game blog: Alex Cobb faces his former team

The Orioles (22-29) have nine games remaining in the 2020 regular season. Their last home series of the year continues tonight as they host the Tampa Bay Rays (33-18) in the third game of a five-game series.

The Rays swept Thursday's doubleheader by 3-1 and 10-6 scores. The Orioles fell to 3-4 on the season against the Rays. The clubs are 6-6 in the last 12 meetings. The O's lost the season series 7-12 to the Rays in 2019. The Orioles are 11-20 versus American League East teams this season and the Rays are 25-12.

Last night, Tampa Bay clinched a playoff berth. The Rays begin tonight leading the AL East by 3 1/2 games over New York and six games over Toronto. The Rays have the second-best record in the AL behind Chicago and the third-best in the majors in back of the Dodgers and White Sox.

Former Tampa Bay right-hander Alex Cobb (1-4, 5.03 ERA) gets the start for the Orioles. They are 4-4 in his eight starts. But Cobb's performance has fallen off as the season has gone on. He went 1-1 with a 2.75 ERA in his first four starts, allowing a .173 batting average and a .609 OPS. He is 0-3 with a 7.32 ERA over his past four starts, allowing a .337 average and a .932 opponent OPS. Cobb has allowed nine earned runs over eight innings in his past two starts.

From 2011 through 2017, Cobb went 48-35 with an ERA of 3.50 and a WHIP of 1.217 for the Rays. Since 2018, he is 6-21 with an ERA of 5.29 and a WHIP of 1.436 for the Orioles. Cobb is 0-3 with a 4.61 ERA in five career games against Tampa Bay.

Since joining Baltimore in March 2018, Cobb has not won a game at Oriole Park. He is 0-10 with an ERA of 5.44 in 17 home starts and the Orioles are 3-14 in those games.

Right-hander Tyler Glasnow (3-1, 4.47 ERA) will make his 10th start for the Rays. The 27-year-old Glasnow has a WHIP of 1.187 and walks 3.7 per nine innings with an impressive 14.2 strikeouts per nine. That is well above his career rate of 10.2 entering this year.

While Glasnow has an ERA of 5.11 in his last two starts, he has allowed two earned runs or less five times. The Rays are 7-2 in his outings and have won his last six starts. Lefty batters hit .203 with an OPS of .592 off Glasnow, while right-handers bat .208/.756.

In two starts this season against Baltimore, he is 1-0 with a 3.09 ERA. In five career games, he is 3-0 with a 2.12 ERA and WHIP of 0.859.

Trade completed: The Orioles announced today that they have received 18-year-old shortstop Isaac De León as the player to be named later from the Miami Marlins to complete the Aug. 1 Richard Bleier trade.

De León was originally signed by the Marlins on July 2, 2018 as an international free agent out of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He got a bonus of $275,000.

He played in 66 games in the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League in 2019 and hit .256/.367/.324 with 13 doubles, 35 runs, 38 walks, one homer and 20 RBIs.

De León has been added to the Orioles player pool, but with the short time left in the regular season, he will not physically report there. The O's now have 39 players on the 40-man roster and 60 on the 60-man player pool.

The Orioles have at least four players to be named later still to come. They got two for Tommy Milone from Atlanta, one from Houston for Hector Velázquez, one from Colorado for Mychal Givens and a PTBNL or cash from the Mets for Miguel Castro.