Although Baltimore occupies last place in the American League East, the Orioles are impacting the National League West race during the final month of the season.
Baltimore will get another chance to slow an NL West contender when the division-leading Los Angeles Dodgers visit on Friday night in the opener of a three-game series.
The Orioles are heading home after a road trip that saw them lose two of three to the NL West’s third-place team, the San Francisco Giants, before sweeping a three-game series against the NL West’s second-place club, the San Diego Padres.
“We’ve been on the other side of this the last couple of years,” Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino said, referring to when the team was a postseason challenger. “For us (now), we have the ability to play loose and free. Now, I do think going forward for the Baltimore Orioles, when we are back to playoff contention, we need to continue to play loose and free.”
The Dodgers benefitted from Baltimore’s success in San Diego, as they still hold a two-game division edge despite their own struggles. Los Angeles (78-62) has dropped five of its past six games, including all three against the host Pittsburgh Pirates to begin the week.
“We’re going to play better,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It doesn’t feel good losing and you’re facing an Oriole team that’s playing good baseball, so it’s not going to get any easier.”
Regarding the series in Pittsburgh, Roberts said, “We’ve done that a lot as far as losing to teams that don’t have winning records. I don’t have a reason for it.”
The Orioles (64-76) are set to begin a six-game homestand.
Baltimore first baseman Coby Mayo said of the success on the road trip, “I think it just goes to show how resilient of a team we can be.”
Right-hander Dean Kremer (9-10, 4.52 ERA) will get the start for the Orioles on Friday, trying to shake off his worst two-game stretch of the season. He allowed a total of 14 runs, 13 earned, on 16 hits in eight innings against the Houston Astros and San Francisco.
Kremer will make his third attempt at reaching the 10-win mark for just the second time in his big-league career, which began in 2020. His lone outing against the Dodgers came in 2023 when he allowed five runs in 4 2/3 innings during a no-decision.
Los Angeles right-hander Tyler Glasnow (1-3, 3.41 ERA) matched his season-high mark with seven innings in two of his August starts, but he went 0-2 with a 3.45 ERA last month. His lone victory of the season came on March 31.
Glasnow pitched at home in four of his past five outings. He has started nine games in his career against Baltimore, producing a 4-2 record and a 3.96 ERA in those meetings.
The Orioles hope that second baseman Jackson Holliday can continue a seven-game hitting streak in which he is 11-for-28 (.393) with seven walks. He is batting .249 with 16 home runs this year.
“Twenty-one years old, think about what he’s doing,” Mansolino said. “He’s doing incredible. He just had like a bad three weeks or a bad month. So yes, he’s had a great road trip, we expected it the whole time.”
Baltimore is home for the first time since a 1-7 homestand last month that ended with a four-game sweep by the Boston Red Sox.
–Field Level Media
