The Blue Jays and Orioles are both still hanging around the AL wild-card chase, but neither club has played like a team ready to surge. That’s what gives Monday night’s opener in Baltimore a little extra weight: with the season running out, this three-game set is one of the last chances for either side to make noise.
Toronto enters at 77-79 after dropping four of its last six, and the lineup has another question mark hanging over it after Vladimir Guerrero Jr. left Sunday’s game in the fourth inning with lower back stiffness. Blue Jays manager John Schneider said, "We just wanted to be careful, and hopefully he's good for (Monday)."
Baltimore is in an even tighter spot at 75-81. The Orioles need to win their final six games just to finish at .500 in Craig Albernaz’s first season as manager, and they sit five games back of the last wild-card berth. The mood was understandably flat after Sunday’s sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers, a series in which Baltimore didn’t score over its final 19 innings.
"Obviously we haven't really given ourselves a big shot after getting swept here," Gunnar Henderson said. The Orioles were blanked 1-0 on Saturday and 3-0 on Sunday night, and Henderson added, "It just sucks because the starting staff and the bullpen, they all threw exceptionally well this series."
Toronto took two of three from Baltimore earlier this month in Toronto and leads the season series 6-4.
The Blue Jays will open with right-hander Trey Yesavage (5-5, 3.65 ERA), who is making his first big-league appearance since Aug. 4.
He exited that start against Houston with a left knee injury that later required surgery to repair his meniscus. Schneider said Yesavage is expected to be limited to 50 pitches and about three innings Monday.
Yesavage has already seen Baltimore twice this year. He took the loss June 5 after allowing six runs in 5 2/3 innings, then bounced back the following week with one run allowed over five innings in a no-decision. He hasn’t won since July 29, but his late-season work last year gives Toronto something to lean on: in three September outings, he went 1-0 with a 3.21 ERA, and the Blue Jays went 7-2 in the games he pitched as they pushed toward the World Series.
Baltimore will counter with right-hander Shane Baz (6-15, 4.11 ERA), who had a brief scare Tuesday night against the New York Mets when Bo Bichette’s comebacker struck his right elbow. Baz is still lined up to start, though, and comes into this one after throwing four-plus innings in that outing, his shortest of the last six.
He has been tough on Toronto in his career, going 4-1 with a 2.13 ERA in seven starts against the Blue Jays across 38 innings. The lone loss came June 7 in Toronto, when he gave up five runs, only one earned, in 5 2/3 innings.
Baltimore also got a small bullpen boost Sunday, when Felix Bautista returned for his season debut after shoulder surgery last year. He allowed one run and two hits in two-thirds of an inning against Milwaukee, but he appears available for a couple more chances this week.
"Knowing how long I was out, all the hard work I had to put in to get through that, and being here now, seeing the fruits of all that hard work, it feels incredibly satisfying," Bautista said.
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