The Baltimore Orioles wrapped up a 3-2 home stand and now head to the Windy City to face the Chicago White Sox in a series of vastly different teams on the 2022 season.
The White Sox, who were expected to compete for a division title, have been beaten by injuries that have seen their team struggle to play .500 ball. As they slowly are getting healthy, they still have a chance to turn things around and still find themselves in thick of a division race, only 4.5 games back.
For the Orioles, they are starting to show grit and talent in their rebuild and have started turning heads with their competitiveness over the last couple months. The Orioles reached the 30-win plateau after 68 games this season, compared to taking 92 games to accomplish that feat last year.
Separated by 3.5 games between each other, this is a series that means a lot to both teams, even if the baseball world doesn’t see the significance of this four-game match-up.
The Orioles will look to end their losing streak against the Southsiders. The last time the Birds beat the White Sox was May 1, 2019, in the first game of a doubleheader.
The Orioles’ lineup will face Johnny Cueto, Michael Kopech, Lance Lynn and Dylan Cease across the four games, so they will have their task cut out for them. Baltimore will counter with Dean Kremer, Kyle Bradish and Jordan Lyles, with Saturday still yet to have a starter announced.
❌-Factor:
This brings us to The Baltimore Battery ❌-Factor for the series: the O’s starting pitching.
The O’s bullpen has shown its moxy all year long, as they have the seventh best ERA in the majors this season. However, the starting pitching has been a question mark since surprising the league in April.
Lyles and Wells have been pretty consistent at keeping the O’s in ball games and assuring our team doesn’t have a difficult mountain to climb. Kremer has pitched well since his return to the rotation, which has been a huge upside for the team.
The most important thing for our starters to do is to keep the ChiSox from scoring early and limit the walks, which puts extra runners on base. If they keep the walks down and keep Chicago from scoring early, we will have the inside edge on this series.
The first game is tonight, in which Dean Kremer (1-1, 2.35 ERA) will toe the rubber against Johnny Cueto (1-3, 2.95 ERA). First pitch is at 8:10 p.m. EST.
Roster Moves:
As reported by numerous sources earlier this afternoon, the Orioles have traded infielder Pat Dorrian to the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for cash considerations.
Dorrian, 25, was acquired by the O’s in 2019 as a part of the Yefry Ramirez trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He hit just .161/.256/.269 with three homers and 15 RBIs for Triple-A Norfolk this season.
Game 1 Starting Lineup:
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