O's game blog: Looking for a series win in Toronto

Since early last season, the Orioles have lost just one American League East series. They need a win tonight at Rogers Centre for that stat to continue. Right before the All-Star break the O's lost a series to the Yankees. But they are 17-1-6 in their past 24 division series. 

They went 32-20 in AL East games last year and are 24-11 this season heading into this series finale. The O's are 7-5 against Toronto and 12-4 in AL East road games.

After losing Tuesday in Toronto 5-2 as they were held to three hits, they won 7-3 last night when they hit three homers.

With last night's win, the Orioles have clinched a second straight season series win over the Blue Jays. This is the first time they’ve accomplished that since winning the season series in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

From 2020-2022, they went 16-32 against Toronto. But since the start of 2023, they are 17-8 versus the Blue Jays. 

Now 68-47, the Orioles and Yankees once again begin play tonight tied for the division lead and tied for the best record in the AL.

The Orioles have won three of four and seven of the past 11 games, going 10-9 since the All-Star game.

The Orioles have scored 69 runs and hit 27 homers on the year in their 12 games against the Blue Jays. They are scoring 5.75 runs per game, batting .252 and with an .846 OPS.

The O's are now 46-10 when hitting two or more home runs.

Anthony Santander hit two homers last night, his 16th career multi-homer game. His 34 on the year is a new career high. Santander has hit 11 homers his past 20 games and 25 in 59 games since June 1. In that span, he is batting .278/.328/.637/.965 and he adds 49 RBIs.

MLB leaders, homers since June 1:

25 - Anthony Santander, Orioles
21 - Aaron Judge, Yankees
20 - Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers
19 - Ketel Marte, Diamondbacks

Jackson Holliday homered for the third game in a row last night to become the youngest player in American League history to do that.

In seven games since rejoining the team, Holliday is 9-for-24 with four homers and 10 RBIs, batting .375, slugging .917 and with a 1.361 OPS. In three games versus Toronto, he is 3-for-11 and the three hits are homers with seven RBIs.

Holliday has hit two of his homers on 0-2 counts, one on the first pitch and the other on a 1-1 pitch. The homer in the seventh last night, on 0-2, put the Orioles ahead 4-3 and changed the momentum of that game that they won 7-3.

Right-hander Dean Kremer (4-8, 4.39 ERA) will make his 16th start. He has a 5.40 ERA his last five starts, pitching five innings or less four times. The Orioles are 6-9 in Kremer's starts, losing the last three. 

Kremer allows an OPS of only .485 the first time through the batting order this year and that goes up to .768 the second time and .936 the third.

Kremer, who has not faced Toronto this year, is 3-3 with a 4.35 ERA in 10 career games versus the Blue Jays.

Right-hander Kevin Gausman (9-8, 4.56 ERA) will make his 23rd start. The O's drafted Gausman No. 4 overall out of LSU in the 2012 MLB Draft. He finished sixth in the NL Cy Young voting in 2021 and was ninth in the AL in 2022 and third in 2023.

In his lone start this year against the Orioles at Rogers Centre, he gave up three homers and six runs over 6 1/3 on June 3. Santander hit a two-run homer off him and Austin Hays homered twice off Gausman that night.

After their series finale in Toronto, the O's will head south to Tampa to face the Rays. The O's will send Zach Eflin (Friday), Corbin Burnes (Saturday) and Albert Suárez to mound in the three game series. The Rays have only announced Zack Littell (Friday) as a starter.