There’s just one more homestand before the All-Star break. This time, it’s the Chicago Cubs who come to town for a three-game set from beautiful Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
These two teams meet for the first and only time this season, with the Birds coming home with a 57-33 record and a three-game lead ahead of the New York Yankees for the AL East lead.
This series features some flamethrowers, as game one will be a match-up of Dean Kremer (4-4, 3.93 ERA) vs. Jameson Taillon (5-4, 2.99 ERA). Game two will be a showdown of aces with Corbin Burnes (9-3, 2.32 ERA) facing Shota Imanaga (7-2, 3.16 ERA). Finally, game three will see Albert Suárez (5-2, 2.48 ERA) vs. Justin Steele (1-3, 2.95 ERA).
Kremer is set to make his second start since being reinstated from the injured list. In his first start since returning, Kremer looked better than he had all season, as No. 64 logged eight strikeouts while allowing no runs on two hits.
It will be a huge boost to start this series if Kremer and his newly-found splitter can bring that same dominance, especially having Burnes pitch game two.
Austin Hays has seen Taillon well (.571 avg in 14 at-bats), while Cedric Mullins and Anthony Santander have hit two home runs each against him.
BATTERY ❌️-FACTOR
The BATTERY ❌️-FACTOR in this series is the way teams have beaten the Cubs all year. Get through that starting rotation as quickly as possible because their bullpen has struggled.
Collectively, Chicago’s bullpen holds a 4.21 ERA, allowing a 1.36 WHIP. If the O’s offense lets the starters linger around for too long, especially Imanaga and Steele, the bats will have a much tougher time playing catch-up or adding insurance against a shortened bullpen outing.
Get to them early. Make them work counts to get their pitch count high. Get to that pen, and the Birds will win this series.
GAME 1 STARTING LINEUP
This penultimate series before the break begins on Tuesday evening. Games one and two will be televised on MASN2, with game three being on MASN, all set for 6:35 p.m. EST, and you can catch each game on your local Orioles Radio Network station.
How do you see this series playing out? Let us know in the comments below! Make sure to follow The Baltimore Battery on Facebook, Twitter (X) and TikTok, and use the hashtag #baltimorebattery when sharing our content!
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