Baltimore @ Detroit preview
Comerica Park
Last Meeting ( Sep 10, 2010 ) Baltimore 6, Detroit 3
The Baltimore Orioles have been a new team under Buck Showalter’s management and look to build upon another scrappy win when they face the Detroit Tigers on Saturday.
On Friday, the Orioles (54-87) broke a tie game in the top of the eighth inning with an RBI single and a sacrifice fly and then tacked on another for good measure in the ninth to book a 6-3 victory. The win pushed Baltimore to 22-14 under Showalter since he took over on Aug. 2.
Jeremy Guthrie (9-13, 3.89 ERA) continues to lead the way for Baltimore’s pitching staff and he will take the ball in Saturday’s start against the Tigers (71-71). He has allowed just two runs over his last two starts, both wins for the 6-foot-1 right-hander.
Guthrie is coming off an 8-4 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in which he surrendered two runs and struck out eight in seven innings.
Baltimore’s ace is 6-3 in 10 starts since the All-Star break, working on a 2.51 ERA. He has thrown at least seven innings in seven of those outings and is 1-1 with a 4.44 career ERA against the Tigers.
Guthrie will have to be careful when dealing to Detroit slugger Miguel Cabrera. The Tigers’ third baseman belted a two-run homer and added an RBI double on Friday.
He leads the American League with 113 RBIs and sits second in batting average (.335) and home runs (34). Cabrera is a career .529 hitter against the Orioles, but only has one hit in seven at-bats against Guthrie.
Detroit’s Max Scherzer (10-9, 3.51 ERA) heads into Saturday’s start on a roll. He is 3-1 with a tidy 1.72 ERA in his last eight starts, though he wasn’t quite as sharp in his last outing. Scherzer gave up four runs over 7 1/3 innings, but the Tigers dropped a 5-4 decision to the Chicago White Sox.
The 6-foot-3 right-hander has piled up 157 strikeouts over 169 innings this year and has at least six strikeouts in each of his last five starts. Scherzer was solid in his only meeting with the Orioles back on July 7. He went seven innings allowing only one run on six hits in a 4-2 win.
Baltimore, which averages only 3.75 runs per game this season, has hammered out at least six runs in four of its last six games. The Orioles have also won six of their last seven road games while Detroit has split its last six overall.