The Baltimore Orioles lead the American League East entering Wednesday’s road clash with the Toronto Blue Jays and will look to do everything possible to ensure the Blue Jays are unable to make up ground in the division race.
Baltimore Orioles vs. Toronto Blue Jays (-122, 8.5)
Grayson Rodriguez gets the start for the Orioles, who enters having allowed in his most recent start against the New York Yankees fewer than two runs in a start for the first time since April, posting a 6.21 ERA for the season.
Rodriguez has a fielding independent that is better than his ERA at 5.02, but has still surrendered 1.9 home runs and 3.9 walks per nine innings to go along with 10.1 strikeouts per nine innings.
Blue Jays start Yusei Kikuchi knows quite a bit about surrendering home runs, allowing 1.8 home runs per nine innings with his 3.79 ERA seeming unsustainable given the amount of hard contact he has allowed.
Kikuchi’s fielding independent is nearly full point higher than his ERA at 4.78 and enters Wednesday’s start with command issues at home, issuing 3.7 walks per nine innings.
Overall for the season both teams enter with good numbers from their bullpens with the Blue Jays second in the league in bullpen ERA and the Orioles eighth in this category entering Tuesday, burn the Blue Jays needed to make a trade at the deadline to acquire Cardinals reliever Jordan Hicks with their main closer Jordan Romano currently on the injured list.
To make matters worse on the Blue Jays pitching staff, the Orioles are averaging nearly 5.3 runs per game on the road this season, which ranks second among teams in the American League with nearly 1.3 home runs per game away from home.
Even though the Blue Jays are just 15th in the league in runs per game and are dealing with an injury to Bo Bichette, who leads the team among players with enough at-bats to qualify in batting average, the offense should still get plenty of opportunities as they rank third in the American League in home on-base percentage.
Most of the Blue Jays offensive struggles have come against left-handed pitching and with a right-handed pitcher in Rodriguez going against a Blue Jays team that entered Tuesday fourth in the league in batting average and ninth in home runs against right-handed pitching, Wednesday sets up for a slugfest north of the border.
The Play: Orioles vs. Blue Jays Over 8.5
