O's game blog: Road trip begins in Detroit

As the Orioles begin a two-city, seven-game road trip tonight, left-hander Alexander Wells (1-0, 4.35 ERA) will make his fourth major league appearance and his second start. The 24-year-old Wells faces Detroit in the opener of a three-game series.

Wells is pitching on seven days rest after getting his first start last Wednesday on the road against Tampa Bay. He pitched 5 2/3 innings, allowing five hits and three runs with two walks and seven strikeouts on 93 pitches. He used his fastball for 47 of those pitches that day at an average velocity of 88.1 mph. He threw 29 sliders in that game, along with 11 curveballs and eight changeups.

Wells got 11 whiffs on 41 swings in that start against the Rays, including whiffs on five of 15 swings against his slider. And he has a 33.3 percent whiff rate on that pitch through his first 10 1/3 major league innings.

Wells is currently ranked as the Orioles' No. 17 prospect by MLBPipeline.com and No. 20 by Baseball America.

In 10 games this season with Triple-A Norfolk, he is 5-3 with a 4.19 ERA. Before his latest call to the big leagues, he had thrown back-to-back scoreless starts for the Tides on July 4 and 11. In those games, he allowed five hits over 11 innings with two walks and 10 strikeouts.

Over his minor league career, Wells has gone 35-27 with an ERA of 2.94 and WHIP of 1.095. He has averaged just 1.4 walks per nine innings with 7.1 strikeouts. Wells is a rarity in that he is an international amateur signee by the club that has reached the majors. The O's signed him out of Australia in August 2015 for $300,000.

His career on the farm included a year where he went 11-5 with a 2.38 ERA for Single-A Delmarva in 2017 and walked just 10 over 140 innings. The season ended with him being named the Orioles' Minor League Pitcher of the Year, taking the Jim Palmer Award. In 2018' he represented the club in the All-Star Futures Game in Washington at Nationals Park. He faced two batters in that game and got them both out.

His mound opponent tonight is right-hander Casey Mize (5-5, 3.63 ERA), who was taken as the No. 1 overall draft pick by the Tigers out of Auburn in 2018. They signed him to a $7.5 million bonus.

The 24-year-old Mize will make his 20th start of the season tonight. Over 104 innings, he has allowed 89 hits, including 16 home runs, with 28 walks and 85 strikeouts. He has recorded a 1.125 WHIP with a 2.4 walk rate and 7.4 strikeout rate.

In his last start versus Kansas City, he gave up six hits and four runs over 4 2/3 innings on 79 pitches. The Tigers are 11-8 when he starts and he's allowed two earned runs or less 11 times with 10 quality starts.

Mize throws his fastball 51 percent of the time at an average velocity of 93.9 mph, ranking in the top 40 percent in the game in average velocity. He uses his cutter 27 percent and split-finger pitch 15 percent. Coming out of Auburn, scouts put a 70 grade on his splitter, 60 grade on his slider/cutter and 55 grade on his fastball.

The Orioles (35-65) reached the 100-game mark last night posting their fourth walk-off win of the year and second in the last three games. Ryan McKenna drew an eight-pitch walk with the bases loaded in the ninth as they beat Miami 8-7 to complete a 4-1 homestand. They are 7-4 since the All-Star break, winning two series, losing one and tying one.

The Orioles now have hit two or more homers in six straight games, hitting 13 total in those games. It is their longest streak of games with two or more homers since they did this in 10 games in a row July 17-27, 2019. O's batters walked a season-high nine times Wednesday night.

The Orioles have scored 22 runs the last five games and 53 in the last 10, producing more than their season average of 4.19 runs per game.

Trey Mancini bashed his 19th home run last night, his third in the last four games. He extended his hitting streak to 10 games and is batting .390 (16-for-41) during the streak with four doubles, one triple, three home runs, four RBIs, three walks, and nine runs scored. He has an extra-base hit in six straight games with four doubles and three homers in that span.

Detroit (49-55) beat Minnesota 17-14 in a wild one last night. The Tigers clinched their first series win at Target Field since July 21-23, 2017. They became the first Tigers team in 60 years to score 17 runs without a homer and they won while giving up seven home runs. No team in American League history had allowed seven homers in a game, went homerless and still won.

The Tigers have won two in a row and are 9-4 since the All-Star Game. On June 19, Detroit was 29-42, but the Tigers are 20-13 since that date. They are 28-22 at home and have won nine in a row at home. They went 4-3 versus the Orioles during the 2019 season, the last year these two teams played. Detroit is 25-23 in games decided by one or two runs.

Detroit's Jonathan Schoop was not in the lineup last night, but is batting .284/.326/.463/.789 with 17 homers and 60 RBIs. He hit 10 homers in June, the most in a month by a Tiger since J.D. Martinez hit 11 in June 2015. Schoop went 0-for-5 on Tuesday to end a career-long 16-game hitting streak. During that streak, he batted .354/.377/.446 and he has hit .332 with 14 homers and 46 RBIs his last 58 games.

AL leaders, team fielding percentage

.989 - Houston
.988 - Oakland
.9864 - Orioles
.9857 - Tampa Bay
.9856 - Seattle

The O's have committed 33 errors in 52 road games, for a .981 fielding percentage, compared to just 14 errors in 48 home games, for a .992 fielding percentage.