Some notes from the weekend series at Rogers Centre

TORONTO - Well, the Orioles pitching has done OK in this series at Rogers Centre. The O's staff gave up two runs on Friday night and five on Saturday to the highest scoring team in the majors. But today Chris Tillman will have to turn around his problems pitching against the Blue Jays - both this year and in his career.

In four starts this season against Toronto, Tillman is 0-3 with an ERA of 15.00, allowing 27 hits and 25 runs in 15 innings. In 18 career starts versus the Jays, he is 4-9 with a 5.68 ERA. In 10 career starts at Rogers Centre, Tillman is 2-5 with a 7.38 ERA.

Those stats are scary bad and we don't see those numbers often connected to Tillman. Does he overcome that history today to pitch the Orioles to a series win?

Toronto (77-58) has won its last four series and is 8-1-1 in the last 10. The Blue Jays are 11-3 their past 14 games, 24-6 in the last 30 and 32-12 since the All-Star break. They've clearly energized this city and they've posted back-to-back sellouts this weekend. They figure to pack the park again today.

The Orioles (65-70) have done a very good job in this series pitching to the big guns. The top five in the Toronto batting order - Ben Revere, Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Troy Tulowitzki - are batting a combined .132 (5-for-38) the last two games.

But Ryan Goins and Kevin Pillar, batting eighth and ninth, are 6-for-14 this weekend versus the Orioles staff. Goins has reached base in 13 of his last 29 plate appearances.

Meanwhile, the Orioles offense that produced 17 runs on Wednesday and Friday, was held to one run on four hits by David Price and two relievers yesterday. Price, now 14-5 with a 2.43 ERA, gave up just three hits over seven innings against the Orioles, throwing 103 pitches, 69 for strikes.

"He's good," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "This time of year with everybody kind of beat up, if you have a pitcher with good stuff, it kind of plays even more this time of year. David has been doing that for a long time. We shouldn't feel like he's picking on us."

His mound opponent, O's right-hander Mike Wright, admitted he lacked confidence when he started in Toronto in June. He showed more yesterday allowing three runs in four innings. Wright had good life on his fastball early in Saturday's game and threw some 95 to 98 mph heaters past some of the Toronto big guns.

"Yeah. I was missing up a little bit, but I had pretty good (fastball) life. My arm felt great, so I was trying to let it ride and try to throw more confidently than last game. I found myself in a lot of tough situations, but felt I did a good job minimizing it, even though I shouldn't have been in those situations to start with," Wright said.

Caleb Joseph drove in the only Orioles run yesterday and talked about the importance of today's game and trying to win a series against the American League East leaders.

"They're always important, every game is," Joseph said. "(Friday's) game was just important as today's and today's is just as important at tomorrow's. But we need wins, wins period. So if it's a 1-0 win or a 12-10 win, we'll take it. We've got to just reset and try to get wins each and every time out."

We'll find out later today if O's catcher Matt Wieters can play this afternoon. He was not available yesterday, we learned after the game, due to a left wrist injury. Wieters hurt the wrist in the sixth inning Friday. Second baseman Jonathan Schoop threw a ball past first base for an error and then Tulowitzki running up the line, turned toward second base but stopped and went back to first. Wieters backed up the play, grabbed the ball and ran toward first. He dove at the bag, but Tulowitzki jumped over him. That is when Wieters jammed his wrist and injured it.

So there was pain, but now the Orioles need the gain. They need to take this series to try and keep their flickering playoff hopes alive with a trip to Yankee Stadium looming on Monday.

Tides tie: Triple-A Norfolk lost at Durham 2-0 Saturday night. But when Gwinnett also lost, the Tides' magic number to clinch the International League South was reduced to one with two games to play. So Norfolk has clinched at least a tie for the division championship, as the Tides seek their first playoff berth since 2005.

Short-season Single-A Aberdeen won again last night, beating Hudson Valley 14-5 behind a 14-hit attack. But first-place Staten Island won also. So with two games to go, Staten Island leads the division at 39-34 by a half-game over the IronBirds at 39-35 with Hudson Valley 1 1/2 games back at 38-36. Each team has two regular season games remaining and obviously will not play the same number of games. Aberdeen needs to gain at least one game the next two days on Staten Island to take first place. Aberdeen has made the playoffs just once in the club's history.