O's Game 1 game blog: David Hess faces the Yankees

The Orioles have not lost since Saturday. They are 1-0 since then, beating the Los Angeles Angels Sunday behind John Means and now they've been rained out twice in New York.

Today the Orioles and Yankees will play a straight doubleheader at Yankee Stadium.

In Game 1, right-hander David Hess (1-4, 5.50 ERA) gets the start. Hess got off to a strong start to the 2019 season but has struggled lately. He threw 6 1/3 no-hit innings on April 1 at Toronto, his first start of the year. He had a 3.32 ERA over his first four games. But in his last four, he is 0-2 with an 8.22 ERA. Over 15 1/3 innings, he has yielded 20 hits and 14 earned runs and has given up six homers in that span.

Hess has allowed 10 homers in 34 1/3 innings for a mark of 2.6 per every nine innings. In 2018, he allowed homers at a rate of 1.9 per nine innings.

Hess has thrown five innings or less in four straight starts, and the Orioles are 2-5 when he gets the start. In two games (one start) against the New York Yankees this season he has thrown seven innings, allowing six hits and four runs. In three career games, he is 0-1 with a 4.50 ERA.

At the 40-game mark the Orioles are 14-26 going 6-15 at home and 8-11 on the road. They are 3-7-2 in 12 series and 2-3-1 in road series. The Orioles are 3-10 in series-opening games.

The Yankees (24-16) won two of three from first-place Tampa Bay over the weekend, and are one game behind the Rays for the division lead. They have won three straight and seven of their last eight series, going 16-6 their past 22 games. New York lost two of three at home to the Orioles to begin the season but is 10-3 in its last 13 at Yankee Stadium. New York has gone 122 games without being shutout, the longest current streak in MLB.

Lefty J.A. Happ (2-3, 4.36 ERA) will pitch the opener for the Yankees. Happ has a WHIP of 1.223, has allowed 1.9 homers per nine innings with 2.5 walks and 7.1 strikeouts.

Over his first four starts of 2019, he had an ERA of 7.23. But over his last four he is 2-1 with a 2.19 ERA. He's allowed two earned runs or less in three of those games. Happ's first two starts of this year were against the Orioles and he went 0-1 with an ERA of 6.48, allowing 10 hits and six runs in 8 1/3 innings.

Most home runs in the majors since 2012:

1573 - Orioles
1496 - New York Yankees
1492 - Toronto Blue Jays
1410 - Houston Astros
1362 - Texas Rangers

On the farm today there were several morning starts for O's affiliates. Single-A Delmarva beat Greensboro 3-2 to start a doubleheader. Delmarva is now 28-7. Righty Grayson Rodriguez allowed two runs over five innings to improve to 5-0 with a 1.45 ERA.

Right-hander Dean Kremer threw six scoreless in Single-A Frederick's 1-0 loss at Wilmington. Kremer gave up just two hits and fanned nine on 83 pitches.

Double-A Bowie lost at Akron 5-2 in 11 innings. But lefty Alex Wells threw seven scoreless allowing three hits with one walk and seven strikeouts. Wells has an ERA of 2.28 for the Baysox.

Triple-A Norfolk beat Toledo 12-3 as right-hander Tyler Herb went six innings allowing two runs and is 3-0 with an ERA of 3.43. He was acquired on March 23 from the San Francisco Giants for outfielder Mike Yastrzemski.

There will be a new game blog for Game 2 of today's doubleheader.