O's game blog: The Orioles look for win No. 90

The Orioles have two games remaining in the 2024 regular season and they are two games that won’t change much for the club in that they have a playoff berth secured and after last night, the top American League Wild Card spot secured too.

The Orioles will host either Detroit or Kansas City next week, beginning Tuesday in Baltimore in a best-of-three series.

The Orioles (89-71) beat Minnesota 7-2 Friday to lock down the No. 4 playoff seed and by losing, Minnesota was eliminated from postseason contention.

Friday’s win improved the Orioles to 4-0 this year against Minnesota by a 29-11 score. They have scored seven, 11, four and seven runs in wins over Minnesota. The Orioles have produced 47 hits in the season series with 11 homers, batting .320 and with a team OPS of .922.

The Orioles have now won eight games in a row over Minnesota, outscoring the Twins 55-17 in those games.

That ties for the second-longest win streak for the Orioles over the Twins in the all-time series.

* Won 12 straight, 1980-1981.

* Won 8 straight, 1957-1958, also 1971, also 1996-1997 and also 2023-2024.

Minnesota’s longest winning streak over the O’s is 16 games between 2018 and 2021.

Despite this win streak over the Twins, Minnesota has had several winning seasons over the Orioles the past several years too. The Twins are 38-25 versus Baltimore since the start of 2014 and that marks the second-most wins against the O's among non-AL East teams in that span.

The Orioles have won three of four and five of their past eight games. The Orioles are now 45-34 in road games, and they are 19-11 against AL Central teams.

The Orioles are 31-33 since the All-Star game and 36-40 since July 1.

Minnesota (82-78) has lost five of six, eight of 11 and 14 of the last 20 games. The Twins were given a 95.8 percent chance of making the playoffs on Sept. 2 at 75-62. But they are 7-16 since that date.

In last night’s win, the Orioles got a two-run homer from Ryan O’Hearn and a solo shot from Colton Cowser. O’Hearn tied his career high hitting No. 14. Before Friday he had hit one homer his last 59 games. Cowser hit No. 24 to tie San Diego’s Jackson Merrill for most homers among MLB rookies. He's the 10th rookie in team history to hit at least 20 homers and the first since Gunnar Henderson (28) last year. He’s also the ninth rookie in O's history to record 20 doubles and 20 home runs in a season and the first since Henderson (29-2B, 28 HR) in 2023.

The O’s are using right-hander Matt Bowman as their starting pitcher tonight. He is 1-0 with a 3.77 ERA in 14 games with the Orioles. Bowman has made 210 MLB appearances since 2016, but none as a starter.

In his first 12 O’s games, he pitched to an ERA of 0.69, allowing one run over 13 innings. His last two games he has allowed five runs and two homers in 1 1/3 innings for an ERA of 33.75.

Lefty Tucker Davidson is expected to pitch also tonight after the Orioles recalled him from Triple-A today and optioned Bryan Baker. Davidson, wearing No. 67, pitched 32 times on the farm for the Tides this year, making 17 starts. He went 5-11 with a 3.89 ERA in 115 2/3 innings.

Righty Zebby Matthews (1-3, 5.71 ERA) will make his ninth start for Minnesota. In 34 2/3 innings he has allowed 44 hits with a 1.500 WHIP. Over his past two games he has allowed two runs in 9 1/3 innings.

For three teams in the minors this year he went 6-3 with a 2.60 ERA. In 97 innings he walked just seven and fanned 114 for an 0.6 walk per nine rate and 10.6 strikeouts rate.

A win tonight and the Orioles would have back-to-back seasons of 90 or more wins for the first time since 1982-1983.