O's game blog: The road trip begins at the Trop

The Orioles begin a two-city, seven-game road trip in St. Petersburg, Fla. at Tropicana Field tonight with the start of a series against the first-place Tampa Bay Rays. The Orioles will play three games this weekend at the Trop and then four games starting Monday at Cleveland.

Tampa Bay (39-24) leads the American League East by one game over the Boston Red Sox. The Rays are 20-5 since May 13 with a plus-77 run differential. They are 34-16 since April 16 after going 5-8 to start the year. The Rays have been in first place every day since May 24. Tampa Bay is 16-14 at home, but 9-2 in its last 11 home games.

The Rays' last five losses have come by seven total runs, and they are 6-0-2 over their past eight series.

May 18-20 the Rays swept a three-game series in Baltimore by a combined 32-14 score, and Tampa Bay hit 11 homers in those three games. They posted wins by 13-6, 9-7 and 10-1 scores. In the series, the Rays produced 43 hits and hit .347/.418/.677 and posted an OPS of 1.096, which is their best versus any team in 2021.

The Orioles were off on Thursday after getting blasted 14-1 Wednesday night by the New York Mets. The Orioles (22-39) will have 100 games remaining in the season after tonight's contest. They are 5-2 in June and 2-7 against National League teams. They are 6-11-3 in series this season and now are 8-12 in series-opening games.

The O's Ryan Mountcastle drove in a run on Wednesday and has an RBI streak of eight consecutive games as this series begins. His streak is the longest such streak in the majors this season, and he is the first Oriole to record an RBI in eight straight games since Anthony Santander did so from Aug. 6-8, 2020. The club record is 11 straight by Doug DeCinces from Sept. 22, 1978 to April 6, 1979. The team record for a single season is 10 straight by Reggie Jackson (July 11-23, 1976). The major league record for consecutive games with an RBI by a rookie is 10.

O's third baseman Maikel Franco went 2-for-3 in the last game with a single and double and has recorded multiple hits in three straight games for the seventh time in his career, the first since July 29-31, 2018. He has recorded multiple hits in four of his past six games, after doing so just three times in 28 games prior.

Center fielder Cedric Mullins takes a nine-game hitting streak into the road trip. He has hit .500 (18-for-36) during his streak, with nine extra-base hits, nine runs, five walks and five RBIs.

The Orioles are 8-15 versus AL East teams, but are just 2-8 in the last 10 such games.

Lefty Keegan Akin (0-0, 3.60 ERA) will make his third start and seventh appearance. In back-to-back starts against the White Sox and Indians, he gave up one run and eight hits over 9 2/3 innings with three walks, eight strikeouts and one home run. He pitched five scoreless innings on Friday versus Cleveland.

Akin is now 1-2 with a 3.09 ERA in eight career starts, and the Orioles are 5-3 in those games, 1-1 this season. Over 32 innings he has allowed 33 hits with 12 walks to 42 strikeouts with a 1.406 WHIP and 11.8 strikeout rate.

Lefty Ryan Yarbrough (3-3, 3.95 ERA), coming off a complete-game win, gets the start for the Rays. Last Thursday he went the full nine versus the New York Yankees, allowing two runs and six hits on 113 pitches. At the end of April his ERA was 4.86, but it is 3.03 in six games since then. He has three quality starts his past four outings.

The 29-year-old Yarbrough allows a .699 OPS against left-handed hitters and .717 against right-handers. He has made nine career outings and four starts against Baltimore, going 3-1 with a 3.40 ERA and 1.238 WHIP.

The O's are well equipped to face a lefty per the stat sheet. They rank first in the AL versus lefty pitching in average (.292), slugging (.474) and team OPS (.819).

Entering play today, the Orioles' four full-season minor league affiliates have combined for a 77-47 record (.621 winning percentage), the second-best record by organizational winning percentage in baseball. And they have a combined +150 run differential. The O's three lower levels, Double-A Bowie, high Single-A Aberdeen, and low Single-A Delmarva are a combined 65-28 (.699) with each team in first place in their respective divisions.