O's game blog: Chen on the mound in series opener at New York

Tonight, an Orioles team that has been struggling to score runs lately plays against a team that they have hit well this year.

While the Orioles have scored three runs or less in 10 of their past 13 games, they have scored 54 runs with a team average of .299 this year in going 5-5 against the New York Yankees. The clubs begin a big three-game series tonight in The Bronx.

Some O's hitters against the Yankees this year:

* Caleb Joseph is batting .536 (15-for-28) with three doubles, a triple, two homers, six RBIs, a .929 slugging percentage and a 1.480 OPS.

* Manny Machado is batting .385 (15-for-39) with two homers, seven RBIs and a 1.056 OPS.

* Jimmy Paredes is batting .458 (11-for-24) with two homers, six RBIs and a 1.333 OPS.

* Adam Jones is batting .286 (12-for-42) with two homers and six RBIs.

The Orioles have scored 23 runs their last three games versus New York and 31 in their last five games.

But the Orioles have not been great in the first games of series this year with a mark of 15-17. The Orioles have lost seven straight series-opening games at Yankee Stadium.

New York (50-41) leads the American League East by four games over the Orioles. The O's are 16-9 against the Yankees since June 21, 2014. The Orioles (46-45) lost six of seven until winning the last two games of their series at Detroit.

New York has won 18 of its last 25 games at home and averages 5.36 runs per game at home, where they are 27-17 for the season. The Yankees lead the majors averaging 1.66 homers for every home game.

Wei-Yin Chen (4-5, 2.78 ERA) gets the start tonight on his 30th birthday and will pitch against 25-year-old right-hander Nathan Eovaldi (9-2, 4.50 ERA).

Chen has recorded an O's season high of five straight quality starts, going 2-1 with a 2.23 ERA. He has allowed two earned runs or less in seven consecutive starts, going 3-1 with a 1.86 ERA and the Orioles are 5-2 in those games.

This year he has posted career bests in ERA, WHIP (1.09), hits per nine innings (7.8), strikeouts per nine (7.4) and ERA+ (139).

Eovaldi is also pitching well recently. He is 4-0 with a 2.93 ERA over his past five starts. But in 98 innings for the year, he has allowed 123 hits for an average against of .308. He has struggled in the first inning with an ERA of 8.15, an average against of .393 and has allowed four homers in 17 2/3 in the opening inning of his 18 starts.

Two keys to this series for the Orioles in my mind are handling Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner at the top of the New York lineup, and trying to take a lead into the late innings to avoid seeing Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller.