O's game blog: Looking for a series win ahead of a west coast road trip

The Orioles last three-game win streak came over 30 games ago. They won three straight July 14-20, wrapping around the All-Star break with a win to end the first half and two to start the second half.

They have not won three straight over a three-day period since taking four in a row from June 26-29. With two wins in the first three games versus Houston, the Orioles tonight look for their first home series win over the Astros since May 25-27, 2015. And a win would give them another three-game win streak.

The Orioles ended Houston's nine-game road winning streak 7-5 Friday night and won again yesterday 3-2.

Earlier today the Yankees beat Colorado 10-3 to improve to 77-54. They lead the Orioles (76-55) by one game pending the O's result tonight. Aaron Judge hit two homers today for New York, hitting No. 50 and No. 51.

Jackson Holliday's three-run, pinch-hit double in the sixth inning Saturday afternoon provided all the O's runs in their 3-2 win. It was Holliday's first pinch-hit appearance in MLB.

According to MLB.com's Sarah Langs, at 20 years, 264 days, Holliday became the youngest Orioles player to drive in 3+ runs as a pinch-hitter and the youngest MLB player to do so since the Washington Senators' Jeff Burroughs on Aug. 2, 1971. He's the youngest player with a pinch-hit extra-base hit since Washington's Juan Soto homered on May 15, 2018 versus the Yankees.

The O's Gunnar Henderson is tied for third in MLB with 102 runs scored with Judge, behind the Yankees' Juan Soto (107) and Royals' Bobby Witt Jr. (110). He's the first Oriole with more than 100 runs in a season since Trey Mancini (106) and Jonathan Villar (111) in 2019.

Henderson has 33 homers and his next will tie the most ever by an O's shortstop. Cal Ripken Jr. hit 34 in 1991 and Miguel Tejada hit 34 in 2004.

Anthony Santander leads MLB switch-hitters with a career-high 38 home runs, the most by an O's switch-hitter in team history. Ken Singleton held the previous record when he hit 35 in 1979. The last MLB switch-hitters with 38 homers in a season were Cleveland's Francisco Lindor (38) and José Ramírez (39) in 2018.

Only seven switch-hitters (11 occurrences) in MLB history have hit at least 40 home runs in a season: New York-NL's Carlos Beltrán (2006), Houston's Lance Berkman (2, 2002, 06), Texas' Mark Teixeira (2005), Atlanta's Chipper Jones (1999), New York-NL's Todd Hundley (1996), San Diego's Ken Caminiti (1996), and New York-AL's Mickey Mantle (4, 1956, 58, 60-61). Mantle is the only switch-hitter in MLB history to hit 50 homers, when he did so in 1956 (52) and 1961 (54).

Houston (69-60) is leading the AL West by 4.5 games over the Seattle Mariners. Even in losing the last two days, Houston is 12-5 the last 17 games and 14-8 in its past 22.

Since April 27, the Astros are 62-41 (.602) in their last 103 games, which is tied for the best winning percentage in the Majors in that span. Through April 26, the Astros were 7-19 after 26 games and they are also an AL-best 44-27 (.620) since June 1.

Right-hander Dean Kremer (6-9, 4.30 ERA) gets the start tonight. Over his past two games, he allowed two runs and seven hits in 12 innings versus Washington and the New York Mets. In the previous two games, he had allowed nine runs over 9 1/3 innings.

In three career starts versus Houston, Kremer is 3-0 with a 1.14 ERA and .496 OPS against.

Lefty Yusei Kikuchi (6-9, 4.37 ERA), formerly of Toronto, will make his fifth start tonight for Houston. He is 2-0 with a 2.42 ERA in those four games. In two starts this year for the Blue Jays against the Orioles, he is 1-0 with a 1.74 ERA.

Farm news: As I wrote here earlier, the Orioles are promoting top 100 catching prospect Samuel Basallo from Double-A Bowie to Triple-A Norfolk. Basallo, who just turned 20 years old 12 days ago, is ranked as the No. 11 prospect by MLBPipeline.com and No. 17 by Baseball America.

In another move, the O's are promoting catcher Creed Willems from High-A Aberdeen to Bowie. Willems, age 21, played 82 games for the IronBirds, batting .238/.332/.456/.788 with 18 doubles, two triples, 13 homers and 51 RBIs. He produced an OPS of .921 in July and .895 in August. 

Willems is ranked as the Orioles' No. 24 prospect by MLBPipeline.com and No. 27 via Baseball America. 

Earlier this week the O's moved top draft pick Vance Honeycutt to Single-A Delmarva. He had two hits batting leadoff in their win today. In three games for the Shorebirds, he is 3-for-11 with three singles, two walks and two stolen bases.

On Saturday the O's DSL Orange entry lost in the Dominican Summer League playoffs to end its season. DSL Orange lost 3-0 to the Angels in the third and deciding game of its DSL quarterfinal series.