O's game blog: Trying to avoid a sweep at the Trop

The Orioles have been swept in a series of three or more games 15 times this season. They'll need a victory this afternoon at Tropicana Field against Tampa Bay to avoid adding to that.

The Orioles have been swept 10 times in three-game series and five times in a four-game series. They've had 10 of those sweeps come on the road and five at home. The most recent was last weekend when they lost three straight at Kansas City.

Tampa Bay (77-64) has beaten the Orioles by 14-2 and 10-5 scores this weekend. O's pitchers have allowed 24 runs on 24 hits and issued 12 walks. During a 1-7 road trip that ends today, O's pitchers have an ERA of 7.03.

Orioles hitters have scored seven runs on 17 hits with 25 strikeouts at the Trop. During the road trip the O's have scored 22 runs in eight games, going 7-for-48 (.146) with runners in scoring position. They have scored two runs or less five times on the trip. For the last six consecutive games they have hit one homer or less.

Left hander Josh Rogers (1-1, 4.35 ERA) will make his third major league start today. In his debut on Aug. 28 at home versus Toronto he went five innings allowing seven hits and three runs to get a win. In his second game, on Monday night at Seattle, he took a loss allowing four hits and two runs over 5 1/3 innings.

Rogers was acquired by the Orioles on July 24 from the New York Yankees in the deal that sent Zach Britton to New York.

Before the deal he pitched at Triple-A Scranton. In 19 starts he went 6-8 with an ERA of 3.95 in 19 starts. After the deal he went 2-1 with an ERA of 2.08 in five starts at Triple-A Norfolk. He gave up an average of .226.

In his first two big league starts, lefty batters are 0-for-7 against him and right-handed batters are 11-for-33 (.333). He has allowed two hits in eight at-bats (.250) when pitching with runners in scoring position.

Rogers has shown some poise and confidence in these first two big league starts.

"Just trying to take my confidence into it," he said. "I felt like I belong and deserve to be there. I try to be confident and I think that was a huge thing. Just talking to a lot of guys in my other organization, you see guys come up and down that didn't have any confidence. You know that shows in the results. Just to have confidence, not a cockiness, feel like you are supposed to be here and that can go a long way."

Rogers has thrown his four-seam fastball 56 percent of the time so far and he averages 90.1 mph on that pitch. He's thrown his slider 33 percent of the time at 81 mph and his changeup 11 percent at 80.8 mph.

After today's game the Orioles will have 19 games remaining. They return home Tuesday night to start a nine-game homestand that will see them host Oakland, the Chicago White Sox and Toronto.