O's game blog: An AL East series as the homestand begins against Toronto

They played nine straight games on the West Coast, going 6-3 and tonight the Orioles begin a stretch of nine straight games at home. They will host the Toronto Blue Jays, Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox for three games each through Aug. 30.

The Orioles (77-47), now a season-best 30 games over the .500 mark, lead the AL East by three games over Tampa Bay, by 8.5 over Toronto, by 11.5 over Boston and by 17 games over the New York Yankees. Tampa Bay begins a series tonight at home versus Colorado.

The Orioles were off on Monday after a 12-1 win at Oakland Sunday to complete their seventh three-game sweep of the season. They scored 28 runs in the Oakland series after scoring 17 runs in the first six games of the road trip.

The Orioles are 24-14 on the year against AL East teams. And, since losing their first two division series of 2023, they are 8-0-2 over their past 10, going 22-10 in the 32 games in those series.

They are 8-2 this year and have outscored Toronto 60-31, going 3-0 at Toronto in May, 2-1 at home in June and 3-1 at Rogers Centre in a series that ended Aug. 3.

Toronto (69-56) has won four of its last six games but lost six of 11 over a longer stretch. The Blue Jays are just 11-23 in AL East games, they are 19-15 in the second half and 37-29 on the road.

Toronto's 11 wins in their division are the third-fewest intra-division wins this season in MLB currently behind Colorado with eight and Oakland with six. 

Right-hander Grayson Rodriguez (3-3, 5.44 ERA) will make his 17^th start and the team is 10-6 in the first 17. Last Monday he was the winning pitcher at San Diego, allowing three hits and one run over seven innings on 95 pitches.

It was part of a run of good pitching by the young right-hander since he returned to the majors in July. He has allowed two earned runs or less three times in his last four starts, going 1-1 with a 2.16 ERA and .446 OPS against in that span.

In six starts since July 17, Rodriguez is 1-1 with a 3.03 ERA, allowing just one homer over 35 2/3 innings. In this stretch, he has allowed a .195 batting average, a .517 OPS and has a WHIP of 0.98.

In two starts on the year versus Toronto, he is 0-1 with a 4.22 ERA in 10 2/3 innings.

Left-hander Yusei Kikuchi (9-4, 3.44 ERA), who ranks 10^th in the AL in ERA, gets the start for Toronto. The Blue Jays are 16-8 when he gets the ball this year.

Kikuchi has allowed one earned run or less in six straight starts, throwing scoreless ball in one of those games and allowing one earned run in the other five. He is 2-1 with a 1.29 ERA during those six games with eight walks and 36 strikeouts over 35 innings in the span without allowing a home run. Opponents bat .213 off him with a .535 OPS in those games.

Kikuchi is 1-1 with a 3.52 ERA in three 2023 starts against Baltimore with a 1.435 WHIP.

The O's Ryan Mountcastle has reached base safely in a career-high 26 straight games since July 21, the longest active streak in MLB. It is the longest on-base streak by an Orioles batter since Jonathan Schoop reached in 26 consecutive games from April 12 to May 12, 2017. The last Oriole to reach safely in at least 27 consecutive games was Nick Markakis, who had a 38-game streak from July 5 to Aug. 18, 2009.

The Orioles are 36-23 (.610) at home this season, the third-best home record in the AL and fifth-best in MLB. And the O's have gone 7-3 in their last 10 games at Oriole Park.