O's game blog: Alex Cobb faces his former team at Camden Yards

After last night's game was rained out, the Orioles host the Tampa Bay Rays tonight to begin a four-game series. The Orioles are 1-1 on what is now a six-game homestand.

Baltimore (29-73) beat Boston 7-6 on Tuesday night after losing to the Red Sox 5-3 on Monday. The Orioles are 17-34 at home. Overall, they have lost four of five, seven of 10 and 21 of the last 27 games.

Tampa Bay (52-50) just took two of three from the New York Yankees. The Rays are 9-6 over their last 15 games. Since beginning the year at 4-13, Tampa Bay is 48-37 since April 18. The Rays are 20-20 against the American League East and 5-4 versus the Orioles after winning the season series 11-8 last year from Baltimore.

Orioles right-hander Alex Cobb (2-13, 6.17 ERA) will make his 19th start. Cobb leads the majors in losses and the Orioles are 3-15 in his starts. He is 0-6 in his past eight starts since his second O's win on June 5 at the New York Mets.

Cobb gave up four runs (one earned) in five innings in taking his latest loss on Saturday at Toronto. Late in that outing, he developed a blister that factored into the decision to take him out. Now he's leading the majors in losses, one year after going 12-10 with a 3.66 ERA for Tampa Bay. In the 2013 and 2014 seasons combined, Cobb had 12 losses in 49 starts. Now he has 13 in 18 starts.

"I know that there's a lot of discussions about wins and losses and how they don't matter," Cobb said in Toronto. "But I worked really hard my whole career to try and have a real nice-looking record because whether you're a casual fan or real in-depth into the numbers, the first thing you see on the back of your (baseball) cards is your win-loss. I've always taken pride in that in my whole career. I think I've always had a winning record. It sucks. I absolutely hate seeing that win-loss in parentheses next to my name. It's sickening. The only thing I can do is try to eat at it as much as I can and get it back to respectable looking numbers."

Added manager Buck Showalter: "I know it's very black and white, but you look at his last month or so of pitching, Alex is not our issue. We need to have better ball security and swing the bats better. He pitched well enough to win the game (on Saturday). He gave up one earned run and we just didn't score enough. I'm OK with Alex. That's one of the problems, I think this year is a good example, that starting pitchers have very little control over."

Tampa Bay right-hander Hunter Wood (0-0, 2.93 ERA) gets the start for the Rays, making his 10th appearance and third start. He's pitching as an "opener" tonight meaning he may throw only one or two innings. In 15 1/3 innings at the big league level, he has allowed 13 hits and five runs with seven walks, 14 strikeouts and a .228 average against. In Triple-A this year, he has a 2-2 record and 3.00 ERA in 24 games, two starts.