Special types of games have come in various fashions for the Seattle Mariners recently.

The Mariners will look to add to that list when they bring an eight-game winning streak into the middle contest of a three-game road series against the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday night.

Seattle relied on stellar mound work for a 1-0 win in the series opener on Tuesday.

“Not a lot of offense, but, wow, what a job the pitching did,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said.

The Mariners, who are on their longest winning streak of the season, have prevailed in 10 of their past 11 games. However, they have lost their last five series versus Baltimore, though they will have two chances to change that on Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon.

Clutch performances have defined the past couple of weeks for Seattle. Josh Naylor’s two-out single in the first inning scored the lone run, and George Kirby tossed seven sharp innings before three relievers completed the shutout.

“This is what we play for is to be in these situations,” Wilson said.

Baltimore has dropped six of its past eight games. The offense has sputtered frequently, with the Tuesday loss marking the third time the Orioles were shut out in 10 games this month.

“We just have to go out there, put together some good at-bats, and hopefully we can get that going (Wednesday),” first baseman/designated hitter Ryan Mountcastle said.

In the past four games combined, Baltimore has collected 17 total hits. The Orioles lost three of those games.

The team’s remaining veterans will be under the microscope to produce.

“They’re going to have pressure on them there,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “So is it debilitating pressure? I wouldn’t say so. Has it been a tough few days? Sure.”

Baltimore outfielder Dylan Carlson snapped a 0-for-35 slide with an infield single in his first at-bat on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh went 0-for-4 in the series opener, ending his run of homering in three consecutive games. Raleigh leads the majors with 45 homers and 98 RBIs.

Right-hander Logan Gilbert (3-4, 3.35 ERA) will try to keep the Mariners on a roll when he starts on Wednesday. He is 0-1 with a 4.50 ERA across his past three starts.

In two career starts covering 12 1/3 innings vs. the Orioles, Gilbert is 1-1 with a 3.65 ERA.

Left-hander Trevor Rogers (5-2, 1.44 ERA) will be the starting pitcher for Baltimore. He has given up a total of two runs in his past three starts, covering a total of 21 innings. He struck out 19 and walked three while going 2-1 in that span.

Rogers got a no-decision in his one career start against Seattle, when he gave up two runs in 6 1/3 innings for the Miami Marlins on June 21, 2024.

The Orioles should be fully armed in the bullpen after Dean Kremer’s eight-inning start in the series opener.

“My job is to be an innings-eater for this team,” Kremer said. “That’s the guy I want to be known as. I want to be the guy who takes the ball and gives a quality outing every time, regardless of the situation, injuries, no injuries, winning team, losing team.”

The Orioles sent Jordyn Adams back to Triple-A Norfolk on Tuesday, opening a roster spot for fellow outfielder Daniel Johnson, who was with Baltimore briefly in 2024. Johnson returned to the organization off waivers from the San Francisco Giants, for whom he went 5-for-29 (.172) this year.

Johnson entered the Tuesday game as a pinch runner and played center field in the ninth inning.

–Field Level Media

With his teammates looking for a boost from their ace right-hander, Hunter Greene returns to the mound Wednesday as the Cincinnati Reds close out their three-game series with the visiting Philadelphia Phillies.

Greene (4-3, 2.72 ERA) will be back on a major league mound for the first time since June 3. In the fifth inning of that game against the visiting Milwaukee Brewers, he felt a tweak in his right groin in the fifth inning, an aggravation of the same problem that sent him to the injured list in mid-May and forced him to miss two starts.

This time, instead of two starts, he missed more than two months.

The Reds are in desperate need of wins of any kind at this point. Cincinnati got six shutout innings from starter Brady Singer on Tuesday in a 6-1 win over the Phillies, setting up the decisive game of the series on Wednesday.

Cincinnati remains two games behind the New York Mets for the third and final National League wild-card spot.

“I mean, I’m not oblivious to the situation that we’re in,” Greene said. “I put a lot of pressure on myself. Nobody’s ever going to put more pressure on me than I will myself. I mean, I’m the one that’s going through this process and going through this journey of the sport and who I am as a person and a player.

“So, I think understanding that and being able to not lose sight of that is super important and keeping that perspective. But yeah, I mean, obviously I’m putting my best foot forward.”

In four minor league rehab starts, including three with Triple-A Louisville, Greene allowed 10 hits and 11 runs (nine earned) while striking out 24 and walking five and yielding four home runs over 13 innings. He gave up two home runs in his most recent start for Louisville on Friday.

Greene owns an 0-1 record and a 4.63 ERA in two career starts vs. Philadelphia.

The Phillies will counter with Cristopher Sanchez (11-3, 2.36 ERA), making his 24th start of the season. The left-hander has won four of his past five starts, including a victory at Texas on Friday. He held the Rangers to one run on six hits over six innings, striking out six and walking one.

Sanchez is 1-1 with a 3.86 ERA in three lifetime starts against the Reds.

Cincinnati’s Miguel Andujar, acquired for his production against left-handed pitching, homered Tuesday for the second time in three games. He is 21-for-51 (.412) with three home runs on the season against lefties.

The Phillies would love to receive some early-inning offense. On Sunday, in a 4-2 win over the Rangers, they didn’t get a hit until the fourth inning. On Monday and Tuesday, Cincinnati starters Andrew Abbott and Singer were perfect against Philadelphia through four innings.

“I’d like to get something going earlier, but those are just the ebbs and flows of the season,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “You just got to grind through it, and hopefully (Wednesday) we come out and we score five in the first three.”

–Field Level Media

Having warded off the challenge of the third-place Giants, the San Diego Padres can turn their attention upward in the National League West standings when they shoot for a three-game sweep in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon.

After sitting seven games behind Los Angeles and one game back of the Giants following a loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on July 7, the Padres have won 20 of 30 to draw even with the Dodgers atop the division.

A third straight win over the Giants in the daytime Wednesday would push San Diego at least temporarily into first place, with the Dodgers scheduled for a night game against the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim, Calif.

Along their way to a share of first place, the Padres have put nine games between themselves and the Giants, relegating San Francisco to pursuit of an NL wild-card spot.

San Diego center fielder Jackson Merrill admitted he and his mates keep track of the standings, though they have more important things at hand.

“Of course we see it,” he said, “but we’re just playing our own game.”

The Padres pounded out 10 hits in each of the first two games in San Francisco, contests started by the Giants’ top two pitchers, Logan Webb and Robbie Ray. Ten of San Diego’s hits have gone for extra bases, including home runs by Freddy Fermin on Monday and Jose Iglesias and Merrill on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Giants have just one double (by Casey Schmitt) and one home run (by Rafael Devers) to show for 18 innings, 7 1/3 of which were thrown by the deep Padres bullpen. Six different San Diego relievers contributed to game-ending shutout ball in the 4-1 and 5-1 wins, allowing a total of five hits.

The Giants will have to hope things are different on Wednesday against Padres right-hander Nick Pivetta (11-4, 2.94 ERA), who is coming off one of his worst outings of the season. In a 10-2 home loss to the Boston Red Sox on Friday, Pivetta was hammered by his old team for five runs in six innings.

The 32-year-old veteran has allowed eight runs in 11 1/3 innings in a pair of outings against the Giants this season, giving him a lifetime record of 2-1 with a 5.84 ERA in seven head-to-heads, including four starts.

Getting hits hasn’t been the problem for the Giants in their run of 12 losses in their past 13 home games. The issue is getting those runners home. San Francisco totaled 24 runs in those games while stranding 97 baserunners.

Typical of the stretch was the sixth inning in the Tuesday loss. Down 4-1, the Giants loaded the bases with one out but failed to get even a single run. Padres reliever Jason Adam entered with three on base and got Patrick Bailey to pop up and Heliot Ramos to foul out.

“It’s a lot of frustration,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said after a game in which Ramos snapped a bat over his knee on an 0-for-5 night with two strikeouts. “Similar theme.”

Riding the momentum of his first big-league win in his last time out against the Nationals on Friday, Kai-Wei Teng (1-1, 5.40 ERA) will get the ball for San Francisco in the series finale. He threw five-plus scoreless innings vs. Washington, permitting three hits and a walk while striking out four.

The 26-year-old right-hander made his major league debut against the Padres in San Diego in March 2024, and he was roughed up for three runs in three innings of relief. Manny Machado had a two-run double off Teng in that contest.

–Field Level Media

Texas pitcher Merrill Kelly will take the mound against his former team for the first time when the Rangers clash with the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday afternoon in the finale of a three-game interleague set in Arlington, Texas.

The Diamondbacks will send right hander Zac Gallen (9-12, 5.31 ERA) to the hill to oppose fellow right-hander Kelly (9-7. 3.38), whom the Rangers acquired at the trade deadline.

The teams have split the first two games of the series, with Texas winning in 10 innings on Monday and the Diamondbacks responding with a 3-2 victory on Tuesday that was delivered by a game-deciding, ninth-inning home run by Ketel Marte.

Kelly, who was a stalwart of the Diamondbacks’ pitching staff from 2019 until the trade on July 31, has made two starts for Texas. He is 0-1 in those two appearances while amassing a 5.40 ERA over 10 innings, allowing two runs on four hits in 5 2/3 innings in a no-decision at Seattle on Aug. 2 before surrendering four runs on five hits and a season-high five walks over 4 1/3 innings Friday in a loss at home to the Phillies.

It was the first time Kelly has walked five batters in a game since 2023.

“I knew I could only walk a tightrope so long by putting that many people on base, giving that many free passes,” Kelly said after the setback against Philadelphia. “Eventually, it ended up coming back to bite me.

“It was probably a mix of just overcorrecting things,” Kelly said about his wildness. “I would kind of fly open, let a ball run too far arm-side and then try to overcorrect it, and then I would kind of pull it and yank it glove-side. Just kind of in-between on everything.”

Since Kelly had spent his entire career as a member of the Diamondbacks until two weeks ago, he has never pitched a game against his previous team.

“We faced him a couple times in live (batting practice),” Arizona shortstop Geraldo Perdomo said. “We’re gonna be ready for Merrill.”

Gallen has suffered through a sub-par campaign and is staring at his first losing season since going 4-10 in 2021. He produced a record of 43-19 from 2022-24 and was finished in the top five in National League Cy Young Award voting in both 2022 and 2023.

Gallen has been better in his last two starts, winning twice and sporting a 2.25 ERA over 12 innings this month. His most recent outing was a six-inning stint at home against Colorado on Friday in which he gave up one run on four hits and three walks while striking out six. Gallen is 4-3 in seven appearances since July 1.

He is looking forward to matching up against Kelly, his former running buddy.

“It’ll be fun,” Gallen said. “I mean, I know as a pitcher, you’re more thinking about the lineup you’re facing. I’m wondering how weird it’ll be for our hitters to face Merrill. For us squaring off against each other, I don’t think of it as much in that sense. But still, it will be fun, nonetheless.”

Gallen is 2-1 with a 2.78 ERA in four career starts against the Rangers covering 22 2/3 innings. He won his last time out versus Texas, hurling five scoreless, two-hit innings in a game the Diamondbacks took 6-0 on Sept. 10 of last season in Phoenix.

–Field Level Media