O's game blog: Kevin Gausman on mound in series opener at Anaheim (O's lose 8-4)

Coming off back-to-back solid outings, right-hander Kevin Gausman (2-2, 3.97 ERA) makes his 15th major league appearance and seventh start of the season tonight when the Orioles begin a series in Anaheim against the Los Angeles Angels.

In his past two starts against Atlanta and Detroit, Gausman has pitched 14 2/3 innings allowing 10 hits and two runs with one walk and 11 strikeouts. He has allowed two runs or less in four of his starts. In those six starts, Gausman has gone 1-2 with a 3.79 ERA. In 35 2/3 innings, he has walked seven, fanned 27 and allowed a .230 batting average.

While Gausman has pitched to an ERA of 1.50 in 24 innings at Camden Yards this year, he is 1-2 with a 6.46 ERA in eight road games, making three starts.

Left-hander Andrew Heaney (5-1, 1.97 ERA) gets the start for the Angels. He has been very strong for that team, allowing two earned runs or less in all seven of his 2015 major league starts with a .205 average against. Heaney was the American League rookie of the month for July, when he was 4-0 with an ERA of 1.98.

He is pitching much better in the majors than he did this year at Triple-A Salt Lake. In 14 starts there, he was 6-2 with a 4.71 ERA and .298 batting average against. This will be his first career start versus the Orioles.

Chris Davis slugged a grand slam in the 10th inning on Wednesday at Oakland to give the Orioles a win. Davis has homered nine times with 26 RBIs his last 15 games. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only three other Orioles have matched Davis' totals in those categories over a 15-game span since the team moved to Baltimore in 1954: Jim Gentile (1961), Cal Ripken Jr. (1996) and Albert Belle (2000).

The Angels are 57-50 and 2 1/2 games back of first-place Houston in the AL West. The Angels hold the first AL wild card spot heading into today's games by a 1/2-game over Toronto and two games over the Orioles.

Los Angeles had lost seven of eight games until scoring three runs in the last of the ninth Wednesday to stun Cleveland and win 4-3. The Angels had been 0-44 when trailing after eight innings. Since going through a torrid stretch with 17 wins in 20 games, the Angels are just 3-10 their last 13 games. But they are very good at home, going 34-22 overall with 16 wins in their last 23 home games.

Mike Trout (32) and Albert Pujols (30) rank first and third in the AL in homers with the Mariners' Nelson Cruz (31) second. They are looking to become the first pair of teammates to hit 40 homers since 2006. Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome of the Chicago White Sox did it then.

The Orioles are 1-2 against Los Angeles this year, but 10-6 since 2013. Over a longer stretch, they are 38-55 against the Angels since 2004.

Winners of nine of their last 12 games, the Orioles are 55-52 heading into this series. Since they had a record of 23-29 June 3, the Orioles have gone 18-5 and then 5-15 and now 9-3. That is 32-23 (.582) over the last 55 games.

Update: The Orioles fell to the Angels 8-4 to open the series in Anaheim. Kevin Gausman (2-3) took the loss after pithching 5 2/3 innings, while giving up six runs on nine hits with two walks and four strikeouts. He gave up a solo home run to Mike Trout in the first inning. Gausman threw 98 pitches, 64 for strikes.

Jonathan Schoop hit his eighth home run of the season in top of the fourth inning, a two-run shot that gave the O's a 3-1 lead. After the Angels added two runs in the bottom of the frame to tie the game back up at 3-3, Matt Wieters hit a solo home run, his fifth on the year, in the sixth for a 4-3 lead.

But the Angels responded again in the bottom of the frame with three runs and C.J. Cron added a two-run homer off Brad Brach in the seventh to complete the 8-4 victory over Baltimore.