BALTIMORE — The Orioles return home Friday night for game one of a three-game series against Kansas City. The O’s are hoping their offense returns with them.
It was a struggle for most of their most recent six-game road trip. They averaged just over three runs per game against the Giants and Brewers before Thursday when they beat Milwaukee 6-3.
Pushing a half-dozen runs across the plate is certainly nothing to write home about, but for the O’s (38-24) it was a late-inning comeback victory - with guys like Ramon Urias, Anthony Santander and Gunnar Henderson among those getting right - that could feed into this weekend’s series against the Royals. K.C. is a team that has the second-worst record in Major League Baseball (18-44) and a pitching staff owning the third-worst earned run average in the Majors at 5.10.
“It just goes to show that we never quit. No matter what game it is we’re always going to battle,” said third baseman Gunnar Henderson. “It has shown that we’ve come back from those three-run, four-run deficits and we are looking forward to keeping that going and just getting the offense back hot again.”
“[Thursday] coming out with a ‘W’ was huge,” added center fielder Aaron Hicks. “It’s big to be able to have some momentum going into this series.”
Tyler Wells gets the start for the Orioles on Friday. He has been dealing. He has 39 strikeouts over his last five games and 28 and a third innings pitched. His 0.849 WHIP - walks and hits, divided by total innings pitched - is the lowest in MLB.
The O’s did have an open spot in the pitching rotation coming around on Saturday. They don’t any more. Cole Irvin will get the start. He was called up from Triple-A Norfolk.
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