O's game blog: At 32-16, Houston has MLB's best record

A run where the Orioles are playing 15 home games over an 18-game stretch takes a brief interlude this weekend. The Orioles (25-20) play in Houston (32-16) tonight to start a three-game weekend series at Minute Maid Park.

Houston has the best record in the majors, with a winning percentage of .667 with Colorado second at .633. At .614, the Yankees have the second-best win percentage in the American League.

Houston got off to an 8-4 start, later improved to 14-6 and now is 16 games over the .500 mark. This is the Astros' best 48-game start ever by two wins. They went 30-18 in 1998 and 2015. The Astros reached a high of 17 games over .500 at 29-12 before getting swept in a three-game series last weekend by Cleveland. They rebounded to take three of four from Detroit, winning 7-6 at home last night. Houston is 14-7 in games decided by one or two runs and 4-0 in extra-inning games.

Should they win tonight, Houston would be back again at 17 games over .500. Before this year, the last time the Astros reached 17 games over was the end of the 2004 season, when they finished with a 92-70 record.

They have been winning with pretty much a complete team effort. Their team ERA of 3.51 ranks second in the majors, trailing only the Dodgers at 3.37. Houston is first in the majors in opponent batting average at .228 and leads with 469 strikeouts. Houston ranks third in the majors averaging 9.70 strikeouts per nine innings. The Orioles rank as ninth-worst in strikeout rate as a team at 22.5 percent.

On offense, Houston leads the AL in hits (433), while ranking second in runs (237), slugging (.444) and OPS (.779). The Orioles rank fifth in hits, and eighth in runs, slugging and OPS.

Last May, the Orioles were swept three straight at Minute Maid Park by 3-2, 4-3 and 4-2 scores. They struck out 52 times in that series, which is a major league record for a three-game series. They went 4-for-28 with runners in scoring position. The Orioles went 3-4 versus the Astros in 2015 and 1-6 last year. They are 1-6 in Houston since 2015.

Orioles right-hander Kevin Gausman (2-3, 6.65 ERA) makes his 11th start of the season tonight. After recording just one quality start in his first seven games, he has two in his past three starts. Last Saturday versus Toronto, he gave up two runs and 10 hits over six innings. Gausman led the team with 18 quality starts in 2016.

In five road starts this year, he is 1-2 with a 9.47 ERA, a .357 average against and four homers allowed over 19 innings. Gausman is winless in his career in road starts against AL West teams, going 0-8 with a 5.06 ERA.

Can he get off to a good start tonight? His ERA this year is 6.30 in the first inning and 8.00 in the second.

Right-hander Joe Musgrove (3-4, 5.63 ERA) will make his 10th start for Houston. Drafted 46th overall by Toronto in 2011, he has allowed two runs or less in three of his past five starts. But he gave up seven runs in three innings and 76 pitches in his most recent start against Cleveland.

Musgrove made one career start versus the Orioles and allowed a career-high eight runs and career-high 11 hits in 5 1/3 innings last Aug. 18 in Baltimore. That was the worst of his 19 career major league starts.

The Orioles today announced that Alec Asher will be Sunday's starting pitcher and that Ubaldo Jiménez is heading to the bullpen. Read Buck Showalter's quotes on that move here.