O's game blog: Looking for a series sweep to end the road trip

Now with 90 wins on the year, the Orioles are looking today for their 10^th series sweep of the season, after a two-game sweep of the Washington Nationals in April and eight other three-game sweeps.

The Orioles (90-51) have wins over the Red Sox this weekend by scores of 11-2 and 13-12. The Orioles allowed 23 hits yesterday as Boston went 23-for-50 (.460), but Baltimore still pulled out the win.

The Orioles' win total has exceeded the 89 from the 2016 team, the last O's club to make the playoffs. They have won 90 for the first time since the 2014 American League East champs won 96 games. The Birds have now won 90 or more 21 times in team history. 

The Orioles hit five homers in the win, two of them by James McCann. Gunnar Henderson and Aaron Hicks hit three-run shots. The O’s season high for homers is six on July 9 at Minnesota. Yesterday was the fifth game of 2023 in which the Orioles scored 13 runs or more. Their season high of 15 runs came in that July six-homer game at Target Field.

Yesterday the Orioles had 14 hits and they’ve had 10 or more hits for seven consecutive games now, their longest streak of 10 or more hits in a game since September 2011.

The O’s lost the first game of this road trip at Arizona, but now have won seven in a row by a combined score of 60-32. A victory today would give the O's an 8-1 road trip.

In five games this year at Fenway Park the O’s are scoring 9.4 runs per game and have a team batting average of .344 and OPS of 1.082. They scored 23 runs in the season-opening series at Fenway and have scored 24 this weekend. In eight games on the season versus Boston, the Orioles have scored 64 runs (8.0 per game) while batting .345 with a 1.003 OPS.

The Baltimore offense now is really humming big time, producing 34 runs the last three games, 60 in the past seven and 141 runs over the last 20 games.

In those 20 games, the O’s as a team are batting .305/.363/.497/.860 with 47 doubles, three triples and 29 homers. In going 16-4 in those 20 games, the O’s have outscored their opponents by 64 runs, 141-77.

On the mound today for the Orioles will be right-hander Grayson Rodriguez (5-3, 4.91 ERA). In 19 starts for the year he has 1.364 WHIP, a 3.4 walk rate and 9.5 strikeout rate.

In his past two starts, Rodriguez allowed two runs over 12 innings against the White Sox and Angels. In nine starts since July 17, after a reset in the minors, Rodriguez is 3-1 with a 2.85 ERA and six quality starts, including three in a row.

He has not faced Boston this year but is 1-1 with a 3.15 ERA in six starts against AL East clubs.

Righty Brayan Bello, 24, will make his 25th start for Boston. He is 11-8 with a 3.61 ERA. Boston is 16-8 in his starts, winning in six of the last eight. Bello, who has not faced the Orioles, is 3-1 with a 2.66 ERA his past four starts.

He throws his two- and four-seam fastballs a combined 57 percent of the time, averaging 95.6 mph on the four-seamer. Bello ranks among major league leaders with a 56.3 groundball rate and gets a 39.7 whiff percentage on his changeup.