O's game blog: Orioles have played 10 straight close games

Will the Orioles play another close game tonight?

After their 5-3 win in 10 innings over Toronto on Friday night, the last 10 Orioles games have been decided by one or two runs. It has been almost two weeks since they played a game decided by a bigger margin. That was when they blanked the White Sox 4-0 on May 7. The Orioles have gone 4-6 in the 10 games.

The Orioles reached the 40-game point last night, and they are 24-16 (.600) and a 1/2 game behind New York for first place in the American League East. If they play the next 120 games at the same pace, they would be 96-64 with two games to go in the season.

Toronto, despite Friday's loss, has been playing better. The Blue Jays are 10-8 in May after going 8-17 in April. They began the season 2-11, but since that point are 16-14.

The Orioles are 6-1 on the year against Toronto, including a 3-0 mark at Oriole Park. The Orioles are 8-1 in their last nine regular season games versus Toronto.

Welington Castillo hit a pair of two-run home runs last night in the win. The second was a walk-off homer in the last of the 10th. The O's have two walk-off homers, both against Toronto and both against Blue Jays right-hander Jason Grilli. On opening day April 3, Mark Trumbo hit the walk-off. The Orioles have four walk-off wins for the season, and their opponents have three.

More notes on the Orioles:

* Second baseman Jonathan Schoop led off Friday's game for the Orioles with a walk. It was the third time in his career he has batted leadoff, and the first since Aug. 29, 2016 against Toronto. Schoop tied his career high with two walks. It was his first multi-walk game of the season and his first since Sept. 11, 2015 versus Kansas City. It was just the third multi-walk game of his career, with the other coming on June 11, 2014 versus Boston.

* Mark Trumbo singled in his first, third, and fifth at-bats. He has hit safely in his last six home games, hitting .385 (10-for-26). He recorded his second three-hit game and his team-leading 14th multi-hit game of the season. Over his last 14 games, Trumbo is batting .344 with three homers and seven RBIs.

* Third baseman Manny Machado is 0-for-9 his past two games and 3-for-20 (.150) over his last four games as his average has dropped to .218. He hit .224 in April and is batting .211 in May.

Right-hander Kevin Gausman (2-3, 7.19 ERA) will make his 10th start tonight. His season-long struggles continued in Kansas City last Sunday, when he could not hold a five-run lead and allowed five runs in 3 1/3 innings. He has given up four runs or more five times, and the Orioles are 4-5 in his starts.

He has allowed an ERA of 6.00 in the first innings of his games and 9.00 in the second innings. While lefty batters are hitting .253 off him, right-handed batters have really hurt him. They are batting .366 with an OPS of 1.019 off Gausman in 2017.

Right-hander Mike Bolsinger (0-2, 6.10 ERA) makes his third start for Toronto. Over 10 1/3 innings he has given up 11 hits and five earned runs with two walks, three strikeouts and a .282 average against. He pitched at Triple-A Buffalo earlier in the year, going 1-1 with a 1.46 ERA in four games, including two starts.

On the farm, Double-A Bowie catcher Austin Wynns went 2-for-4 in last night's game, raising his season average to .345. He ranks third in the Eastern League in batting average. Single-A Frederick outfielder Austin Hays has recorded five straight multi-hit games. He has gone 13-for-24 during that span with two homers and six RBIs, to raise his season average from .289 to .331.