O's game blog: Keegan Akin faces Toronto at Rogers Centre

After Monday's 7-3 loss at Rogers Centre, the Orioles face the Toronto Blue Jays again tonight looking for a win in the second game of a three-game series and six-game road trip.

Ryan Mountcastle's 25th home run provided the Orioles a 1-0 lead in the first inning last night, and he added an RBI infield single in the sixth and scored their final run on Pedro Severino's single in the ninth. Mountcastle leads the team in both homers and RBIs, with 73. Last night was his 18th multi-RBI game, and that also leads the club. He has hit five homers his last nine games and nine over his past 20.

But Toronto's Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit two homers, driving in four runs in the Blue Jays' win. Guerrero now has 38 homers and 95 RBIs. He trails Shohei Ohtani by four homers for the major league lead. Monday was his fifth multi-homer game of the season and the seventh of his career. He extended his hitting streak to eight games, batting .375 (12-for-32) with a double, two homers and six RBIs over that stretch, with a 1.022 OPS. It was his 42nd multi-hit game of the season, that is the third-most in the American League.

Guerrero, the All-Star game MVP, is currently leading the AL in OBP (.407) and OPS (1.006) while leading the big leagues in runs (97). Among all major league batters, he ranks second in OPS (1.006), is tied for second in hits (150), is tied for second in home runs (38), is third in RBIs, third in OBP (.407) and slugging (.599), fourth in batting average (.313), tied for sixth in walks (72) and tied for eighth in extra-base hits (60).

O's lefty Keegan Akin (1-8, 7.26 ERA) will try to slow Guerrero and his teammates tonight. He will be making his 20th appearance and 12th start. The O's are just 2-10 in his starts but won when he last pitched.

Akin has shown some progress his last two starts, allowing three runs in five innings on Aug. 20 versus Atlanta and allowing three hits and one run over seven innings last time out, against the Los Angeles Angels. He threw 92 pitches in that solid outing, and the last two games have helped him lower an ERA that once was 8.13.

Akin is using his fastball 58 percent of the time, at an average velocity of 92.1 mph. He is throwing his changeup 19 percent, slider 18 percent and curveball on five percent of his pitches.

Toronto lefty Hyun Jin Ryu (12-7, 3.88 ERA) will take the mound looking for his 13th win. Ryu has a WHIP of 1.176, allowing 8.7 hits per nine and 1.1 home runs. He walks 1.9 per nine innings with 7.2 strikeouts. Pitching in 2019 for the Los Angeles Dodgers, he was second in the Cy Young voting, and last year he was third with Toronto.

The Blue Jays are 16-9 in his starts this season and 7-2 in the past nine.

Ryu is 3-0 this year with a 2.89 ERA against the Orioles, allowing six earned runs in 18 2/3 innings with one homer and 1.071 WHIP.

The Orioles (40-90) have lost four in a row and 23 of 25 games. They are 13-42 versus AL East opponents, losing 16 straight within the division since beating the Yankees on Aug. 2.

Toronto (69-61) evened its division record at 27-27 on Monday night. The Blue Jays have won three straight and gone 6-4 over their last 10 games, have won 19 of 32 and 25 of the last 44. Toronto is also 36-26 over the last 62 games.

The Orioles are slugging .648 with 33 home runs and a .356 batting average as a team on the first pitch of an at-bat. Their slugging percentage is the third-highest in the majors, their home runs are tied for the fifth-most, and their batting average ranks seventh-best. Toronto leads the majors in all three categories (.719, 49, .405).

The O's have hit 61 home runs with two strikes, the seventh-most in the majors, while their .277 slugging percentage ranks 11th-best and their .168 batting average 12th-best. The O's have three hitters ranking in the top 13 batters of the American League in batting average on the first pitch: Jorge Mateo - .563 (9-for-16), Cedric Mullins - .500 (27-for-54) and Mountcastle - .482 (27-for-56).