ST. LOUIS - We've got a pretty strong pitching matchup tonight at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, as Cardinals right-hander Adam Wainwright will oppose Nationals righty Tanner Roark. If I had written that sentence back in June, you all would've thought I was drunk. But while Roark obviously isn't on Wainwright's level, he has burst onto the scene over the last couple of months and started to turn some heads. Roark is 7-0 with a 1.08 ERA over 41 2/3 innings this season. He's yet to allow a...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The Orioles have a lead for the first time since the top of the seventh inning Friday night. Continue to breathe normally. Chris Davis belted a two-run homer off the batter's eye in center field - naturally going to the deepest part of the ballpark - to wipe out Tampa Bay's 1-0 lead in the fourth inning. He increased his team-record single-season home run total to 52 and upped his RBI total to 136. The Orioles lead the majors with 201 homers, but Davis produced the...

Winning Sunday's nightcap was nice, but the realization of the predicament the Nationals put themselves in came Sunday afternoon at home when they dropped a 4-2 decision to the Marlins. "It didn't help it, for sure," said center fielder Denard Span. "It just made it tougher on us to try to pull this thing out. We are going to keep fighting until we are absolutely out of it. We are stumbling right now, but we are going to keep fighting until it is over." But that does not mean that they...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Not much to report before today's series finale against the Rays, which also represents the final road game of the 2013 regular season. Yes, I left the door open for the playoffs. The Orioles are 39-41 on the road, assuring themselves of a losing record after leading the American League with 46 road wins in 2012. As I wrote earlier, Chris Tillman said his ankle is fine following Sunday's bullpen session, and he's still scheduled to pitch Tuesday night against the...

Wei-Yin Chen, who has struggled at times late this season, does have good numbers this year and in his career against Tampa Bay. He'll try to pitch the Orioles to a win today so they can salvage a game in this series. It's not even close to what the Orioles wanted, but all they can get now. Tampa Bay has never had a four-game sweep against the Orioles at home but has swept a pair of four-game series from the Orioles in Baltimore. The first was May 15-18, 1998 and the second was Sept. 22-24,...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - I don't think it's possible for rain to come down any harder than what I'm hearing at Tropicana Field. The roof is being severely tested right now. Let it pour buckets. First pitch will still happen at 3:10 p.m., give or take a few minutes. Dome sweet dome. Wei-Yin Chen has one win in his last nine starts. He's failed to complete the sixth inning in three of the last five. Brian Roberts is leading off as the designated hitter today, with Ryan Flaherty starting at...

While the Orioles are still mathematically in contention, I think it's fair to say that their postseason chances have taken a serious hit this past weekend against Tampa Bay. On a side note - and this is something on which I'll spend some time this off season on Birds Watcher - I don't feel that the 2013 Orioles were any worse off than the 2012 team. But I think that a lot of the competition around the Orioles - such as Boston, Cleveland, and Tampa Bay - simply got better. If, in fact, this...

Well, here we are. The final week of the 2013 regular season. It's been a fascinating but ultimately disappointing season. Unless the Nationals manage to win out this week and get an extraordinarily well-timed losing streak by either the Reds or Pirates, the Nats' season will come to an end without reaching the playoffs. It's funny, if the Nats had finished a couple of games out of the playoffs last season as they will this one, it would not have been particularly disappointing. Rather,...

Well, here we go. The final stretch. The Nationals will kick off a three-game series against the Cardinals in St. Louis tonight, then fly to Phoenix for three more to close out the regular season. They currently sit five games back of both the Pirates and the Reds with six games to play. If the Nats make up those five games, they'll have a one-game playoff to determine who will earn the final National League wild card spot. In order to pull one of the greatest comebacks ever and earn that...

Right-hander Stephen Strasburg didn't believe his six-inning no-decision was as "awful" as Nationals manager Davey Johnson described it. The Nationals came back to beat the Marlins 5-4 on a late error. "I went out there and competed," Strasburg said. "That is all I can do. I think my changeup got better as the game went on. I spiked it a little bit early. Curveball was good from the start. And fastball command was kind of hit or miss." He was asked about how his forearm felt after...