O's game blog: The road trip opener

As the Orioles begin a two-city, six-game West Coast road trip tonight, they will send their ace to the mound. Lefty John Means (2-0, 1.50 ERA) gets the start as the Orioles play the first of a three-game series at Oakland.

Means ranks third in the American League and tied for sixth in the majors in ERA. He ranks fifth in the AL in WHIP (0.90), fifth in opponent batting average (.171) and tied for ninth with 29 strikeouts.

He will be making back-to-back starts against the same team. He was an 8-1 winning pitcher Sunday at Oriole Park against Oakland, a game that ended the A's 13-game win streak. Over 6 1/3 innings, Means allowed two hits and one run with three walks and six strikeouts on 101 pitches. Oakland batters went just 2-for-20 against him.

Means has been on an amazing pitching roll dating to his final four starts of the 2020 season. In nine starts since then he is 4-1 with an ERA of 1.51. He has allowed one run or less in eight of the nine outings. In that span, he has thrown 53 2/3 innings yielding 30 hits and nine earned runs with 12 walks to 59 strikeouts.

In his five 2021 starts, Means has allowed 18 hits and five earned runs over 30 innings with nine walks to 29 strikeouts. He has gone six innings or more three times and seven innings two times with three quality starts. Over his past two starts against Texas and Oakland, Means has allowed one run on five hits in 13 1/3 innings.

In three road starts this year, he is 1-0 with an ERA of 0.48, allowing one earned run over 18 2/3 innings.

Lefty batters are hitting just .125 with an OPS of .347 against him and right-handers bat .185/.550.

Right-hander Mike Fiers will get the start for Oakland, making his season debut. He's been out due to a lumbar strain. Last season, Fiers went 6-3 with a 4.58 ERA and WHIP of 1.373 in 11 starts. He leads Oakland with 44 starts over the past two seasons, going 21-7 with a 4.06 ERA.

In five career starts against Baltimore, he is 4-1 with a 1.93 ERA and 0.888 WHIP. He has allowed 23 hits to O's batters over 32 2/3 innings.

Oakland (16-10), which took two of three in Baltimore last weekend, is leading the AL West by two games over Seattle. The A's are 16-4 since beginning the year 0-6. But they have lost three of five games, scoring nine runs. Oakland pitching has been a real nice run though, pitching to a team ERA of 2.35 in the past 13 games.

Oakland is 6-1 in one-run games and 9-2 in games decided by three runs or less.

The Orioles (11-14) produced their second walk-off win of the year yesterday, beating the Yankees 4-3 in 10 innings. They are 7-4 on the road and 2-1-1 in road series. Thursday's win improved their record to 8-1 when they score first and to 10-2 when they score four runs or more. They are 7-7 when they hit at least one home run.