Game Preview 06/26: Rubber Match Between Reds and O’s

After a pitching duel and walkoff homer win in the 12th inning Friday and an offensive shootout and 10-5 loss on Saturday, the O’s look to win their first series since the beginning of June against the National League Reds. Before I took a look at the pitching match-up, one thing I want to note is the team’s overall stats. The team is only 19th in runs at 306 but in the other 3 categories highlighted by ESPN.com’s Club House they rank surprisingly high. As for slugging percentage, they are 11th overall at .399. In on base percentage, they rank 10th overall in the league at .322. And most surprising, is their number 9 overall rank in batting average at .259. This continues to be yet another year of the pitcher as offenses are down in all stats in general and I guess looking at the stats, the O’s offense has been pretty hot recently compared to other teams. The only reason they aren’t winning is because their pitching doesn’t keep them in the game. So, let’s focus on today’s starting pitchers.

Homer Bailey
1. He has the same name as Homer Simpson.
2. He’s homegrown as he was drafted by the Reds in 2004 with the 7th overall pick.
3. He made his major league debut in 2007 against the Indians where he pitched 5 innings and giving up 5 hits and 2 runs to get the win.
4. Since then, he’s been in and out of the minor leagues and playing with the Reds and is seen as a bit of a bust. This year is like his make or break year.
5. He’s coming off the 15-day DL today. He’s been out since May 28 with a right shoulder strain and he’s 3-1 with a 3.00 ERA this season in 5 starts.

Jeremy Guthrie
Since I’ve already done a bio on him, I’ll just give you the most recent stats. He is now 2-9 with a 3.79 ERA. His last start came against the Pirates where he got batted around in 6 1/3 innings. He gave up 11 hits and 6 runs, 5 earned. He walked 3 and stuck out 2. The bright side (if there is one) is that he didn’t give up any homeruns in that start. The bad news is: when he’s solid, he gets no run support. When he gets run support, he blows hence his terrible record but not so terrible ERA. Let’s hope we can get a mixture of both sides and he can avoid going into a double-digit loss.

A few things to note:
Nick Markakis is on a 15-game hitting streak. He’s gone 27 for 69, batting .391 with 4 doubles, 2 homeruns, 7 runs scored, and 10 RBIs.

The Orioles are 3 for 19 with RISP in this series. They’ve gone just 5 for 31, .135, in the last 4 series. Ew.

Adam Jones is having an awesome season, which I don’t think many are noticing. I’m planning on writing a whole post on him but he’s batting .291 right now with 13 homeruns and 45 RBIs. He’s leading the team in all 3 of those categories. He’s also on pace to hit close to 30 homeruns this season and to get about 100 RBIs. That’s pretty damn good.

Something sad: Hardy has 10 homeruns, which is more than Matt Wieters (7) and Nick Markakis (6). This isn’t something we were expecting. While it’s great he’s hitting so many, it’s sad that the other 2 are behind him.