O's Game 2 game blog: Andrew Cashner starts for Baltimore

Right-hander Andrew Cashner (4-1, 4.25 ERA) gets the ball in the second game tonight as the Orioles and Yankees complete this doubleheader. Cashner faced the Yankees on opening day and gave up six runs and six hits over four innings. Last season he went 1-2 with a 4.26 ERA in four starts against the Yankees. In his career over eight starts, he is 2-4 with a 4.01 ERA. He has an opponent slash line of .258/.313/.376 versus the Yankees.

Tonight he is making his ninth start of the season. Cashner has a 1.370 WHIP and allows 8.9 hits per nine innings with a walk rate of 3.4 and strikeout rate of 7.0 per nine.

He has recorded three quality starts to lead the team, two of them in his last three games. In that span, his ERA is 3.18 with six earned runs over 17 innings during which he has walked four and fanned 18. The Orioles are 5-3 in his 2019 starts.

Cashner is throwing his four-seam fastball more this year and his two-seam sinker much less. From 2018, his four-seam usage is up from 24 to 42 percent. He is throwing the two-seamer just seven percent after he used that pitch 36 percent last season and 41 percent in 2017. Changeup use is up from 13 to 22 percent.

While lefty batters have hit just .208 with a .551 OPS against him, right-handed batters are hitting .287/.875. He's allowed seven home runs, and all seven have been hit by right-handed batters.

Cashner allows a .239 batting average facing a lineup the first time through the order, .212 the second time and .364 the third time through.

Right-hander Domingo Germán (7-1, 2.70 ERA) gets the start for New York. He leads the American League in wins, with one more than Jose Berríos, Tyler Glasnow and Justin Verlander. He ranks third in the AL in opponent average (.170), fifth in WHIP (0.95) and seventh in ERA.

The 26-year-old from the Dominican Republic is 3-1 with a 1.83 ERA in four games and three starts at home. He has thrown four quality starts and has pitched six innings or longer five times. In an April 7 start versus the Orioles he got the win. That game he went six innings, and Germán allowed two hits and two runs on 89 pitches.

Today marks the third doubleheader of the season for the Orioles and the first since May 1, when the Orioles and White Sox split a twinbill in Chicago. On April 20 the Orioles lost both games in a twinbill against the Twins. Since the team moved to Baltimore in 1954, the Orioles are 170-144-292 (sweep-swept-split) in doubleheaders. At home, the O's are 103-68-169. On the road they are 67-76-123. The records do not include May 19, 1957 and April 22, 1961, in which one of the games was a tie. Today's twinbill is the seventh doubleheader in the majors this season.

The Orioles dropped the opener, 5-3, to fall to 14-27.