O's game blog: The series opener against Seattle

Looking for their first win since Wednesday, the Orioles take the field at Oriole Park tonight, hosting Seattle. It's the continuation of their homestand and the start of a four-game series through Thursday.

Right-hander Dean Kremer (0-1, 9.00 ERA) will make his second start. He took the loss Tuesday in New York against the Yankees. Over three-plus innings, he gave up five hits and three runs with four walks and five strikeouts. Kremer threw 85 pitches, 51 for strikes. His fastball averaged 92.4 mph, per Statcast, and topped at 95.5 mph that night.

Tonight's contest against Seattle marks Kremer's first career appearance against an American League West opponent. All five of his previous career starts have come against the AL East, where he is 1-2, and has pitched to a 5.40 ERA with 16 walks, and 27 strikeouts over 21 2/3 innings.

Tonight is Kremer's first appearance at home this season. The 25-year-old made two starts at Oriole Park in 2020, pitching to a record of 1-0 with a 1.64 ERA over 11 innings with six walks and 13 strikeouts.

Left-hander Justus Sheffield (0-1, 7.20 ERA) will make his second start for Seattle. He was the losing pitcher on Monday versus the Chicago White Sox. He gave up eight hits and six runs (four earned), throwing 92 pitches over five innings. He didn't face a single lefty batter in that game and right-handers hit .348 (8-for-23) against him.

Sheffield was drafted in the first round (No. 31 overall) by Cleveland in the 2014 draft. He was traded to the Yankees in July 2016 and went from the Yankees to Seattle in a deal on Nov. 19, 2018.

Last season for the Mariners, he went 4-3 with a 3.58 ERA and 1.301 WHIP. He averaged 3.3 walks per nine innings and 7.8 strikeouts, and yielded just two homers over 55 1/3 innings. He led AL rookies with six quality starts. And among rookies, he ranked third in innings, sixth in strikeouts and tied for seventh in wins. Among pitchers with a minimum of 50 innings, his opponent slugging percentage of .304 ranked seventh-best in the AL.

Tonight he makes his 14th career major league start. One of those was against the Orioles when he got a no-decision on Sept. 21, 2019. He gave up five hits and four runs over 4 1/3 innings.

These teams square off for the first time since 2019. Tonight's game marks the first time the Orioles have played an opponent outside the AL East or NL East since they faced the Mariners on Sept. 22, 2019.

Orioles batters are tied for the third-youngest group in baseball (27.1 years old) and Mariners pitchers are the fourth-youngest group in baseball (28.1 years old), according to Baseball-Reference.com.

The Orioles (4-5) started the season going 3-0, but have lost five of their last six games. The Orioles have hit exactly two homers in each of their past four games after hitting just one longball in the first five games.

Seattle (5-4) has won two in a row. On Sunday, the Mariners trailed Minnesota 6-0 after five innings and rallied to win 8-6. They scored three in the ninth.

The Mariners went 2-1 in their opening series against San Francisco, then went 1-2 against the White Sox and 2-1 versus Minnesota. They are 5-1 when they score four or more runs.