O's game blog: The O's-Tampa Bay rivalry resumes

The Orioles return to Tropicana Field tonight. That is the place where the 2013 season unofficially ended. The O's lost an 18-inning game there late last September and three more losses followed. They fell out of any wild card contention with a week left in the season. Going 6-13 last year against Tampa Bay didn't help their chances either. In 2012, when the Orioles returned to the playoffs, they had a winning record against every American League East team, including a 10-8 mark against Tampa Bay. That was the only time the Orioles have won a season series against Tampa Bay since 2007. A rivalry is developing between these two teams who try to consistently take on the AL East big boys. Tampa Bay has been doing it and the Orioles hope that is where they are headed as a franchise as well. The Rays went 11-2 in their last 13 games last year against the Orioles. The Birds need to prove they can beat this team and they got 2014's season series off to a good start, beating the Rays 7-1 and 3-0 earlier in Baltimore in a rain-shortened two-game series. O's pitching held Tampa Bay to 12 hits in 62 at-bats in those two games. Evan Longoria went 1-for-8 and Wil Myers 0-for-7. Myers' bat heated up in Tampa Bay's weekend three-game series against New York as he went 6-for-16 with two homers and six RBIs. The Orioles begin play tonight leading the AL East by one percentage point over New York. MLB.com's Richard Justice filed this tweet this afternoon: * 5 AL East teams 1.5 games apart. Under current divisional format (1994), no division has ever been separated by 1.5 games on this date. On the mound tonight at the Trop, Chris Tillman (3-1, 3.68 ERA) faces Chris Archer (2-1, 4.84 ERA). Tillman is 2-6 with a 4.90 ERA in 11 career starts versus Tampa Bay. The Rays have hit 16 homers in 60 2/3 innings off the right-hander. Tillman pitched to an ERA of 0.84 his first three starts, but his ERA is 7.63 the last three. He has had a couple of taxing outings in that stretch. He needed 122 pitches to cover five innings April 18 at Boston. He threw 49 pitches in the first inning of his last start, when he went 4 2/3 innings, allowing three runs against Pittsburgh. He threw 112 pitches. Will Tillman show any ill effects from that 49-pitch inning tonight? Wieters note: Not to be an alarmist but a tweet just filed by Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports has to be concerning to any Orioles fan. The tweet read: * Sources: Orioles C Matt Wieters to visit Dr. James Andrews on Wed 4 exam on elbow soreness. Worst-case scenario is UCL tear. Yeah, that gets your attention. That is all we have right now. MASNsports.com's Roch Kubatko is with the team and certainly will have any news from St. Petersburg after the game from manager Buck Showalter and/or Wieters. Wieters is in tonight's lineup as the DH. Joseph rakes vs. LHP: If the Wieters situation leads to Caleb Joseph joining the O's roster - and he was scratched from Triple-A Norfolk's lineup tonight - Joseph has some stunning stats batting against left-handed pitching in the high minors. Last season with Double-A Bowie, Joseph batted .416 with a .644 slugging percentage and OPS of 1.092 against southpaws. This season with Norfolk over 30 at-bats, those numbers are .467/.667/1.133 against left-handed pitchers.