The Blue Jays host the Baltimore Orioles this weekend in a clash of the top two teams in the American League East. The Blue Jays enter the series 1.5 games behind the Orioles for first place in the division.
Friday, July 29 — 7:07 pm EST (On Sportsnet)
Kevin Gausman vs. Marco Estrada
Saturday, July 30 — 1:07 pm EST (On Sportsnet One)
Yovani Gallardo vs. J.A. Happ
Sunday, July 31 — 1:07 pm EST (On Sportsnet One)
Chris Tillman vs. Aaron Sanchez
Toronto’s return to the AL East
The Blue Jays haven’t played a divisional opponent in more than a month. The last time they played an AL East team was June 19 vs. the very Baltimore Orioles they will face this weekend.
The Orioles took that series two games to one, and then won seven of their next nine. Baltimore has sat atop the AL East for most of the season, and the club’s 58-43 record is the second-best in the American League. Of course, if the Blue Jays manage to sweep the series they can unseat Baltimore for the first time in a long time.
Blue Jays get their ducks in a row
The Blue Jays clearly see this series as an important one, considering what they’ve done with their rotation. Toronto asked knuckleballer R.A. Dickey to pitch on short rest Wednesday so that the team could line up its three best starters—Marco Estrada, J.A. Happ and Aaron Sanchez—for this series with the Orioles.
It was a shrewd move considering those three have been the Blue Jays’ best starters by far and give the team the greatest odds of defeating their divisional foes. Estrada has been especially good against the Orioles this season, posting a 3.27 ERA in his two starts vs. Baltimore, while striking out 17 batters in 11 innings.
Baltimore’s struggling offence
The Orioles come into the series having lost three in a row, primarily due to an offence that has sputtered over the past two weeks.
Since the all-star break the Orioles have scored just 2.7 runs per game, a dramatic decrease in production for a club that once boasted one of the top-five offences in the MLB. Rogers Centre certainly isn’t going to limit hitting, so maybe this is the series when Baltimore breaks out of its offensive funk. But if the team doesn’t, they will certainly have trouble out-slugging a Blue Jays lineup that just welcomed Jose Bautista back into the fold.
It’s always worth mentioning Chris Davis when he’s making a visit to Rogers Centre. The Orioles first baseman homered in all four games of the Orioles’ first visit to Toronto earlier this season, finishing the series with nine RBI and a ridiculous 1.962 OPS over 18 plate appearances.
For his career, Davis is batting .340/.436/.762 at Rogers Centre with 17 homers in 44 games. It’s clearly his favourite park in the majors to hit in, and the Blue Jays would be very wise to pitch the slugger carefully.
The trade deadline looms
This series will occur in the final three days prior to Monday’s non-waiver trade deadline, which means the rosters you see in Friday’s series opener may look very different by Sunday’s series finale.
Of course, it’s possible that neither team makes a move and the Blue Jays and Orioles march into the final two months of the season with the players they currently employ. But it’s hard to imagine the Orioles not wanting to upgrade their starting rotation, and the Blue Jays not wanting to bolster their bullpen. That means it could be an interesting series for players coming and going.
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