O's game blog: Road trip begins at Toronto

The Orioles begin a two-city, six-game road trip tonight playing at Toronto, where they have not played since Sept. 25, 2019. The Orioles play three games at Rogers Centre and then, after Thursday's off-day, play three games at Yankee Stadium.

The Orioles got swept three by Tampa Bay over the weekend by 6-3, 4-3 and 12-8 scores. They went 1-18 versus the Rays and have lost 22 of 24 games overall. The Orioles were swept for the 17th time and Tampa Bay recorded its 13th series sweep.

The road trip begins tonight against the fourth-place Blue Jays (68-61), who are 13 1/2 games out of first-place and 5 1/2 games back of Boston for the No. 2 American League wild card spot. Toronto went 2-1 against Detroit over the weekend in a low-scoring series where each game was decided by a run and the Blue Jays scored six runs total.

Since Aug. 12, Toronto is 6-10 and the Blue Jays are 15-13 this month. Toronto is 20-29 in games decided by one or two runs and is 18-24 in series-opening games. Toronto is 54-24 when scoring four runs or more. The Blue Jays returned home to Rogers Centre on July 30 and are 12-6 there this season.

The Orioles (40-89) will play seven of their next 14 games versus Toronto and the clubs still have 10 games to play. The Orioles are 3-6 against Toronto for the season and 13-41 in games within the AL East.

Right-hander Chris Ellis (1-0, 3.86 ERA) will make his fourth career major league appearance and second start for Baltimore. On Wednesday versus the Los Angeles Angels, he allowed five hits and three runs over three innings with no walks and three strikeouts on 38 pitches. He threw 18 four-seam fastballs in that game with an average velocity of 94.6 mph, topping at 95.4 mph, per Statcast. He added 14 sliders, four curveballs and two changeups. He got nine swings and misses on 19 swings, including on five of nine offerings at his fastball.

Lefty Robbie Ray (9-5, 2.72 ERA) is having a stellar year for Toronto and will make his 26th start. In the AL pitching stats among qualified pitchers, he ranks second in ERA, strikeouts (192) and WHIP (1.024), third in strikeouts per nine (11.3), fourth in innings (152 1/3) and eighth averaging 16.0 pitches per inning.

Despite his strong numbers, Toronto is just 13-12 in his starts and has lost three of his last five.

But Ray has yielded two earned runs or less in six straight starts, going 1-0 with a 1.58 ERA in that span. Over 40 innings, he walked 10 and fanned 50, giving up a .196 batting average and .498 OPS. In his past two starts against Detroit and the Chicago White Sox, he gave up two runs over 15 innings on 10 hits with one walk and 25 strikeouts. He has thrown 109 and 111 pitches in those games.

Ray has been a workhorse for Toronto, a year after throwing just 51 2/3 innings during the shortened 2020 season. In 2019, he pitched 174 1/3 innings for Arizona. Over his past three starts, he has gone seven, eight and seven innings.

In one start this year against the Orioles, he is 0-1 with a 4.16 ERA, allowing two runs and six hits in 4 1/3 innings. In three career games, he is 1-2 with a 5.79 ERA versus Baltimore.

The O's Ryan Mountcastle had four hits yesterday to match his career high for the third time. Mountcastle has hit safely in eight of nine games against Toronto this season, slashing .375/.459/.781 (12-for-32) with four home runs. For his career, he's hit safely in 14 of 16 games against the Blue Jays with a line of .361/.418/.672 (22-for-61) and six home runs.

Toronto has hit an AL-high 192 home runs, trailing only San Francisco (197) for the most in the majors. The Blue Jays lead the majors in team slugging (.450), while they are ranked second in batting average (.263) and OPS (.777), third in hits (1,144), fifth in extra-base hits (420), sixth in OBP (.326) and seventh in runs (642).