The Toronto Blue Jays head into the weekend with a 1.5 game lead on the New York Yankess in the American League East. They’ll look to build upon that with the free-falling Baltimore Orioles in town.
The Orioles trailed the Los Angeles Angels by 0.5 games for the second wild card spot on Aug. 19. They’ve watched that gap grow to 6.5 games after dropping 12 of 14.
Friday, September 4 – 7:07 p.m. ET
Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Drew Hutchison
Saturday, September 5 – 1:07 p.m. ET
Terry Doyle vs. David Price
Sunday, September 6 – 1:07 p.m. ET
Chris Tillman vs. Mark Buehrle
Battle of the Birds: A rivalry renewed
Things tend to get interesting when the Orioles and Blue Jays face each other. Lest we forget the long-running feud between Jose Bautista and Darren O’Day.
Baltimore took two out of three when they met in June. You may recall some fireworks from the series opener.
Orioles can have major impact on American League East
Friday marks the first of seven more meetings between the Blue Jays and Orioles this season. Baltimore heads to New York to face the Yankees on Monday in the first of six more matchups between the clubs.
Obviously, the Blue Jays want to beat the Orioles each and every time out, but the pressure is just a little bit greater with the division title on the line. The Orioles close out their season with a seven-game home stand, four versus Toronto followed by three against the Yankees.
The Orioles have something to play for.
Hutchison’s track record
Hutchison has been much more effective in the second half. He’s also had a lot of success versus Baltimore over the course of his career.
In nine starts, Hutchison boasts a 5-1 record to go along with a 3.13 earned run average and 59 strikeouts in 54.1 innings versus the Orioles.
“Crush” Davis
Chris Davis helped the Orioles end a six-game skid with a walk-off home run on Wednesday. While Davis is certainly swinging to try and save the Orioles’ season, he’s also auditioning for a new contract.
The 29-year-old slugger hit .257/.361/.581 with 10 home runs and 22 RBI in August. After a relatively cool finish to the month, he’s started September 4-for-8 with three home runs.
The tale of Terry Doyle
The Orioles are expected to hand the ball to 29-year-old right-hander Terry Doyle for his first career start Saturday.
Doyle is something of a good story. He was drafted 1,110th overall by the Chicago White Sox in the 37th round of the 2008 amateur player draft. He’s bounced around from the White Sox to the Boston Red Sox and back again, then to the Atlanta Braves before finding himself with the Orioles organization.
Doyle has been very effective through 20 starts between double-A Bowie and triple-A Norfolk. Unfortunately, he’ll be in tough to pen a favourable first chapter to his MLB career when he takes to the mound versus the best offence in the game…and David Price as his counterpart.
