O's game blog: A look at the offense this series and Joseph on his power

The Orioles are batting .413 with nine homers in their series against the St. Louis Cardinals. They scored 12 runs on 15 hits Friday and added 10 runs on 16 hits yesterday. They have hit those nine homers against a St. Louis team that began this series allowing the fewest homers in the majors with 71. The last time a Cardinals team allowed nine homers over two games was in May 2003 against Pittsburgh, according to MLB.com. This is the second time this season that the Orioles have scored 10 or more runs in two straight games. They plated 21 combined runs April 23-24 at Toronto. The club record is three consecutive games of 10 or more runs, set May 24-27, 2003. On the mound today, Kevin Gausman (6-3, 3.77 ERA) faces right-hander Lance Lynn (11-8, 2.89 ERA). In the first two games of the series, Cardinals starters Justin Masterson and John Lackey pitched a total of seven innings, allowing 20 hits and 14 runs, including five home runs. But Lynn comes into this start with the 10th-best ERA in the National League. He has pitched to an ERA of 1.63 over his last six starts. In four interleague starts in 2014, the 27-year-old Lynn is 1-2 with a 1.32 ERA, which ranks seventh-best in the majors. Lynn has allowed just seven homers in 140 innings this season and just one in 63 1/3 innings over his past 10 starts. Gausman is making his first career start against St. Louis. He is 1-1 with an ERA of 9.00 in two career interleague starts, both against Washington. Finally, here is another quote from Caleb Joseph about his power surge, which has produced a homer in each of his last five games. Joseph hit three homers in his first 48 games and 136 big league at-bats. Now he has five in five games and 18 at-bats. "Jim Presley and I have been sitting down and we talked about trying to hit down on the ball and create some backspin - something I did last year in Double-A. Kind of got back to the same kind of mechanics," Joseph said. "We've been working on that for a while now and starting to see the fruits of that hard work. It's going well, but more than that we won the game (Saturday). Individual accomplishments are great but when the team wins everybody wins. Feels really good."