O's game blog: Seeking second straight in Buffalo

The Orioles began play on Friday night with a record of 1-40 this year when trailing after the seventh inning. They trailed 5-1 after the seventh last night. But they scored four runs in the eighth to tie Toronto 5-5 and one in the tenth to beat the Blue Jays 6-5 last night to snap a six-game overall losing streak and a 20-game road losing streak.

Today the Orioles (24-52) face Toronto (38-36) in the third game of this series after winning last night for just the second time in the last 16 games.

A few other notes on the win from Orioles public relations:

* Pat Valaika's bases-loaded walk in the 10th inning was the first Orioles go-ahead, bases-loaded, extra-inning walk since Seth Smith's walk-off walk on April 26, 2017 against Tampa Bay in the 11th inning. It was the first go-ahead, bases-loaded, extra-inning walk on the road since Chris Hoiles in the 11th inning on July 31, 1997 at Oakland, and the fifth in team history.

* The O's win probability, according to Baseball Savant and FanGraphs.com, reached a game-low 1.9 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively, in the bottom of the seventh inning.

* The Orioles' other win when trailing after the seventh inning was May 3 at Seattle. This was also their fifth win when they did not homer, and the Orioles are now 5-20 in such games. It was their seventh win when allowing four or more runs, now 7-42.

* Anthony Santander recorded the Orioles' seventh hit from a pinch-hitter this season (7-for-29) with his RBI single in the eighth inning. It was his first pinch-hit this season (1-for-3) and the second of his career (2-for-9).

* O's batters' seven walks were their most in a game since also walking seven times on April 25 versus Oakland, and the fourth time with seven or more walks this season.

* Ryan Mountcastle drew a walk for the second straight game and has three walks over his last two games, as many as he drew in his previous 40 games combined.

* Lefty Tanner Scott tossed a scoreless inning with two strikeouts. Scott has appeared in 14 of the O's 24 wins, the most on the team. He has gone 2-0 with 10 holds, a 0.75 ERA (1 ER/12.0 IP), and a .100 (4-for-40) opponents' batting average in these wins.

This afternoon left-hander Keegan Akin (0-3, 6.42 ERA) makes his sixth start. Akin was throwing pretty well until his last two games. Then, against Cleveland and Houston, he has allowed 13 runs and 14 hits over 9 2/3 innings as his ERA jumped from 4.13 to 6.42.

In his previous three starts, Akin's ERA was 2.63 and he walked six and fanned 10 over 13 2/3 innings.

Lefty batters hit .364 with an OPS of .976 against him, and right-handers bat .258/.701. In five road games, Akin is 0-2 with a 6.87 ERA and 1.582 WHIP.

Toronto is starting lefty Hyun Jin Ryu (6-4, 3.25 ERA). Ryu finished second in the Cy Young voting for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2019 and was third with Toronto last year.

His last game was against the Orioles, and he allowed just three hits and one run over seven innings on 100 pitches. The O's went just 3-for-23 against him in that game, which included a first-inning homer by Trey Mancini.