O's game blog: The Toronto series finale

The Orioles need a win today in Buffalo against Toronto as they try to split this four-game series. Toronto won 9-0 to begin the series on Thursday and the Orioles evened the series with Friday's 6-5 win in 10 innings. The Blue Jays won 12-4 yesterday after scoring four runs in three different innings.

Toronto (39-36) has won six of its last seven games. The Blue Jays are 15-17 at home and 12-11 in June.

The Orioles (24-53) have lost seven of eight games and 15 of 17. They are 1-21 in the last 22 road games and 12-27 on the road for the season.

O's pitching has allowed 26 runs in this series and given up 10 runs or more four times in the past 10 games, allowing 80 total runs. The team ERA is now 5.50 to rank last in the American League as well as the rotation ERA of 5.98.

Right-hander Jorge López (2-9, 5.68 ERA) will make his 16th start. He recorded a quality start in his last outing against Houston and it was his longest start of 2021. He gave up five hits and two runs over 6 1/3 innings on 95 pitches.

After not going six innings or more in his first nine games, López has now done that in three of his past six games. The Orioles are 4-11 in his starts, but just 1-7 over the past eight.

López has a WHIP of 1.458 for the season, allowing 9.5 hits per nine innings and 1.8 homers with a walk rate of 3.7 and 9.0 strikeouts per nine.

Righty Ross Stripling (2-4, 4.33 ERA) starts for Toronto and has thrown 60 1/3 innings for the year, giving up 57 hits, including 11 homers, with 17 walks and 65 strikeouts. Stripling has a 1.277 WHIP with a 2.5 walk rate and 9.7 strikeout rate. The Blue Jays are 5-6 in his starts.

Stripling began the year with a 7.20 ERA and .330 batting average against his first six starts. But over his last six starts, he is 2-1 with a 2.29 ERA and a .171 batting average against. He has reverse splits where left-handers bat .195 against him with an OPS of .647 and right-handers hit .271/.793.

Toronto produced 15 hits on Saturday and now have 33 double-digit hit games this season, the second-most in the majors behind Houston with 34. Toronto scored all 12 runs with two outs, tied for the second-most in a game in team history, trailing only their 14 two-out runs earlier this season during an 18-4 win on June 13 at Boston. They matched their most ever in a game in which they only scored runs with two outs, also doing so on June 25, 1997 versus Boston.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. drilled his major league-best 26th home run, a two-run shot in the third inning, to break a tie with Fernando Tatis Jr. He has homered in three or more consecutive contests for the third time in his career - all this season. Guerrero surpassed Tatis (25) for the major league home run lead, and is leading the majors in RBIs (64), OBP (.443), OPS (1.125) and total bases (185). He is also currently second in slugging (.683) and in runs (61), third in average (.339), tied for third in hits (92), fourth in extra-base hits (40) and tied for sixth in walks (47).

The O's Ryan Mountcastle has hit safely in 16 of 22 games this month, with nine multi-hit efforts. He leads AL rookies in hits (29), home runs (seven), RBIs (20), extra-base hits (10), total bases (53), batting average (.341), slugging (.624), and OPS (1.008) this month. His 41 RBIs this season are the second-most on the O's. He's batting .320/.363/.592 (40-for-125) with 29 RBIs in his last 34 games since May 15.

Orioles minor league affiliates went a combined 4-0 yesterday, outscoring their opponents 33-4. For the season, O's affiliates have a 101-78 combined record, with a +148 run differential. The Rookie-level Florida Complex League season (formerly known as the Gulf Coast League) begins play tomorrow, with the O's fielding two Complex League teams.