O's game blog: Orioles have scored 35 runs in five interleague games

The Orioles offense is going pretty well right now. Yesterday, they got to both Kyle Lohse and Francisco Rodriguez, both whom have been having pretty good seasons.

The O's scored four off Lohse to end his streak of eight consecutive quality starts. Rodriguez blew the save in the ninth for just the second time in 19 games on the season.

The Orioles have had a pretty strong eight-game run of offense and that includes being shut out in that time. They are batting .311 in the stretch, with 49 runs, 20 doubles, a triple and 14 homers. They are hitting .338 with runners in scoring position.

More homers have indeed started to come. The Orioles had just seven games of two or more homers in their first 41 games. Now they've had five such games in the last eight.

While we are at it, the O's have scored 35 runs with 10 homers while winning four of five interleague games. They have a .557 slugging percentage in those games against Pittsburgh and Milwaukee.

The Orioles are 7-13 against the American League Central but 4-1 against the National League Central.

The first-place Brewers are 30-22, but have lost seven of their past 10. Milwaukee was 23-0 when leading after eight innings until Monday's loss. The Brewers offense has 10 hits or more for six straight games with a team average of .312.

So both pitchers are facing hot hitting teams tonight. Wei-Yin Chen (5-2, 4.08 ERA) is on the mound for the Orioles against right-hander Matt Garza (2-4, 4.92 ERA).

Milwaukee signed Garza to a four-year, $50 million dollar deal in January. The former Tampa Bay pitcher is 9-1 with an ERA of 3.03 in 12 career starts against the O's. But he has not started against Baltimore since Sept. 3, 2010.

Garza, who is 1-for-22 this season as a batter, pitched the first no-hitter in Rays franchise history on July 26, 2010 against Detroit.

The decision to keep Joseph: It was surprising today when the Orioles optioned Steve Clevenger, and not Caleb Joseph, to Triple-A to get down to two catchers.

It seems Joseph has made a strong impression with his defense and the Orioles are 5-3 when he starts this year. He is 4-for-10 throwing out runners, a team-leading mark.

Even though he bats right-handed, Nick Hundley is just a career .199 hitter against lefty pitchers. Maybe Hundley becomes the regular and Joseph, who raked against lefties in the high minors, spots in against some southpaws.

Clevenger will now get some regular at-bats at Triple-A and he certainly remains an important part of the O's catching situation. We could and likely will see him back at some point.

Not a good trend: Chen was taken out tonight after allowing three homers and five runs over five innings. This marks the sixth time in the last nine games an O's starter allowed five or more earned runs.

The starters' ERA in that stretch is 7.94. From May 9-17, O's starters went seven innings or more six times in a nine-game stretch. But now they have zero starts of seven or more innings in the last nine games.