O's game blog: Looking for a series win in Colorado

The Orioles beat Colorado last night 9-6 and produced a season-high 17 hits. That sets them up with a chance to win the series today at Coors Field in the series finale. The club's last series win was at home versus the Chicago White Sox April 22-24. Since then they have lost seven series and tied one.

The Orioles' Renato Núñez has homered in four straight games, the longest streak by an Oriole since Jonathan Schoop homered in five straight from July 22-27, 2018. It is tied for the second-longest streak in the majors this season behind Houston's Jose Altuve, who homered in five straight April 8-13. Núñez has homered in five of his last six games and leads the Orioles with 12 homers. Since the beginning of the week on Monday, Núñez is batting .450/.542/1.250 (9-for-20) with five home runs, eight runs, and nine RBIs. He leads the AL in home runs and extra-base hits (6), and is tied for the AL lead in runs and RBIs during this span.

Orioles right-hander David Hess (1-6, 6.75 ERA) will try to get his season turned around today. Hess will make his 10th start and the Orioles are 2-7 in the first nine. Hess has allowed 17 homers over 45 1/3 this year for a homer rate of 3.4 per every nine innings. That mark for him was 1.9 last season.

Over his past six starts, Hess has an ERA of 9.23 and has allowed 13 homers in 26 1/3. Over his last two starts Hess has thrown 11 innings, allowing seven homers and 13 earned runs.

Hess gave up four homers and nine runs in five innings in his last start at Oriole Park on Tuesday against New York. While Hess has an ERA of 9.47 at home, he is 1-3 with a 4.78 ERA over six games and five starts on the road. He allows 4.26 homers/9 at home and 2.73 homers/9 on the road.

The Orioles today face Colorado right-hander German Márquez (5-2, 3.38 ERA) who will be making his 12th start. The 24-year-old from Venezuela is coming off an outing with eight scoreless on three hits at Pittsburgh Tuesday on 104 pitches. Márquez had an ERA of 6.00 his previous three starts.

He has never started against the Orioles. But, in 10 career interleague starts, is 5-0 with a 2.52 ERA and eight quality starts. Lefties bat .215 with an OPS of .620 against him and right-handers hit .273/.678.

In five 2019 home games, Márquez is 2-1 with a 5.34 ERA and in six road starts he is 3-1 with a 2.08 ERA. He allows 1.6 homers per nine at home and 0.6 on the road.

On the farm, Triple-A Norfolk's Ryan Mountcastle is not starting today for the second straight game. He is dealing with a finger injury and is day-to-day.

Single-A Delmarva improved to 37-10 last night with a one-hit shutout over Hagerstown, 4-0. Ofelky Peralta went six and is 4-0 with a 1.51 ERA and Matt De La Rosa went the last three for a save. It was Delmarva's seventh shutout.

In the last hour before today's game the Orioles put Chris Davis on the 10-day injured list with a sore hip and recalled pitcher Evan Phillips from Triple-A. I'll speculate and wonder if this eventually leads to DJ Stewart joining the Orioles.