O's game blog: It's Straily against Sabathia at Camden Yards

After losing by 10-7 and 11-4 the last two nights, the Orioles host the New York Yankees again tonight. It's the third contest of a four-game series.

The outlook doesn't look too positive for the O's tonight. Right-hander Dan Straily (1-3, 8.51 ERA), who has been struggling, especially at home, goes against a Yankees team that enjoys mashing homers at Oriole Park.

But that's why they play the games, so we're about to find out how this is going to go.

Straily has been a big disappointment to this point, not pitching past five innings in any of his seven starts and throwing 4 1/3 innings or less four consecutive starts. In his last outing, at Cleveland, he gave up four runs over 3 1/3, allowing two homers to Jason Kipnis. Kipnis had no homers in 101 plate appearances this year entering that game.

In five 2019 home starts, Straily is 0-3 with a 11.78 ERA and has allowed nine homers in 18 1/3 innings. He has given up just one homer on the road in 12 1/3 innings.

Another factor working against Straily tonight is that New York features a heavily right-handed hitting lineup. Straily yields a batting average against of .394 and OPS of 1.151 versus righty batters, yielding six homers in 71 at-bats.

The Yankees are 8-2 against the Orioles this year, outscoring Baltimore by 73-40 and hitting 29 homers. At Camden Yards the Yankees are 5-0, have outscored the Orioles 50-22 and have hit 20 home runs. New York has homered four, three, seven, three and three times in games at Oriole Park.

Lefty CC Sabathia (2-1, 2.97 ERA) will make his eighth start. He has thrown six innings or more just once, and that was in his last start. He gave up one run over six frames against Tampa Bay and has allowed two earned runs or fewer in five starts. The Yankees are 5-2 in his starts. In his last 24 road starts against the American League East, Sabathia is 8-5 with a 2.61 ERA.

On April 30 at Arizona, Sabathia became the 17th pitcher and third left-hander to join the 3,000 strikeout club. He leads active major league pitchers in wins, career strikeouts (3,013), innings pitched (3,506 1/3) and quality starts (314).

He is 20-11 with a 3.67 ERA in 45 career starts against the Orioles, tied for his third-highest win total against any opponent (22-Kansas City; 21-Detroit; 20-Minnesota). Sabathia is one of two active pitchers with at least 20 wins versus four opponents, joining Houston's Justin Verlander. He leads active pitchers in wins and starts against the Orioles, and the 45 starts are his second-most versus any opponent, behind 50 against Tampa Bay.

The Orioles (15-33) have lost four in a row for the sixth time in 2019. The previous streaks never reached five. They have lost seven of eight, 11 of 13 and 17 of the last 22. New York (30-17) is 7-1 in its last eight games and a majors-best 22-7 since April 19. The Yankees are 14-4 within the division, going 7-1 in their past eight AL East games.

On the farm today: Single-A Delmarva won again, and again had a walk-off victory. Alexis Torres' single with the bases loaded in the ninth broke a 1-1 tie as the Shorebirds beat Lakewood 2-1. Delmarva (34-10) now has four walk-off wins and is 12-2 in one-run games. On his 20th birthday, Adam Hall went 2-for-4 with an RBI for his 16th multi-hit game.

Double-A Bowie beat Binghamton 2-1. Lefty Bruce Zimmermann threw six scoreless with seven strikeouts in a no-decision to lower his ERA to 2.25. Ademar Rifaela hit a two-run homer in the seventh to produce the Baysox runs.