O's game blog: Cashner has four quality starts his last five games

With a record of 15-36 and without a win in eight days, the Orioles take the field tonight at Coors Field against Colorado. They are out to snap a seven-game losing streak following Friday's 8-6 walk-off loss.

O's pitchers allowed four homers Friday - two each to Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story - and they lead the majors with 111 through 51 games. Seattle ranks second in the majors with 92 allowed. Baltimore has a home ERA of 6.43, yielding 2.56 homers per game at Oriole Park. Their road ERA is 5.20 and they've allowed 1.81 home runs per game away from Camden Yards.

O's pitchers have allowed six runs or more for six straight games, giving up 52 runs. They have been homered against in seven consecutive games, allowing a total of 20. The Orioles have lost 10 of 11, 14 of 16 and 20 of the past 25 games.

Needing a win badly, they send right-hander Andrew Cashner (4-2, 4.14 ERA) to the mound tonight for his 11th start. Cashner took a no-decision Monday when he gave up three runs over six innings against the Yankees. He left with a 7-3 lead in a game the Orioles would lose 10-7. Cashner is still looking for his fifth win, which would be one more than he had all of last season in 28 starts.

Orioles leaders, 2019 quality starts:

5 - Andrew Cashner
2 - Dylan Bundy, John Means
1 - David Hess

Cashner has thrown three consecutive quality starts with a 3.00 ERA, and four over his past five games with an ERA of 3.41. Cashner's strikeout rate of 7.1 per nine innings this season is better than his 5.8 last season, and his best rate since he fanned 7.7 per nine innings in the 2016 season.

Outfielder Keon Broxton made his Orioles debut Friday. He homered on the first pitch he saw. According to STATS, Broxton became the 34th Oriole to homer in his first game with the team. He was the first player to hit a home run on the first pitch he saw in an Orioles uniform since Javy Lopez on April 4, 2004 against Boston. Broxton's homer traveled 474 feet, the farthest by an Oriole in 2019 and tied for the second farthest homer hit in the majors this season. It is the second longest homer for the Orioles since Statcast started tracking in 2015, trailing only Jonathan Schoop's 484-foot blast on Aug. 26, 2015 at KC.

Broxton finished 2-for-4 with a home run and two RBIs. He became the 10th player in club history to record a home run, two or more hits, and two or more RBIs in his first game as an Oriole.

Colorado (23-26) won for the third time in the last eight games and improved to 10-11 at home and to 10-9 this month. The Rockies are 20-14 since a 3-12 start.

Lefty Kyle Freeland (2-5, 6.02 ERA) will make his 11th start. He has been struggling and went just 1 2/3 innings, allowing three runs in his last start at Philadelphia. Over his past five starts, Freeland has an 8.03 ERA and allowed nine homers over 24 2/3 innings.

Last year he went 17-7 with a 2.86 ERA and finished fourth in the NL Cy Young Award vote after finishing seventh in 2017 for NL Rookie of the Year. But his homer rate was 0.8 per nine last season and is 2.1 per nine this year.