Toronto @ Baltimore preview

Last Meeting ( Jul 28, 2010 ) Baltimore 0, Toronto 5

The Baltimore Orioles have played playoff-caliber baseball since manager Buck Showalter joined the fold.

Next on the Orioles' list of priorities: Ending a miserable run against their division rivals from Toronto.

Baltimore looks for its first win against the Blue Jays this season as the teams lock up for a three-game series at Camden Yards. The Blue Jays come in having ended a four-game losing skid Sunday with a win over Tampa Bay, while the Orioles took two out of three games from the Detroit Tigers.

Toronto's dominance of Baltimore this season is evident in nearly every statistical category. The Blue Jays are 12-0 vs. the Orioles in 2010, outscoring them 70-23 and outhomering them by a ridiculous 24-4 margin. Take those 12 games away and the teams would be just six games apart in the standings.

The Blue Jays should probably expect a stiffer challenge this week. The Orioles are a respectable 24-15 since hiring Showalter as their manager last month, and are coming off an impressive 4-2 road trip against the Tigers and New York Yankees.

Both teams have something to play for, despite being miles out of the race in the American League East.

For Toronto, it's the opportunity to finish above .500 in a season when few experts predicted they would do so. The Orioles would like to avoid reaching the 100-loss plateau, something they can accomplish by winning eight of their final 20 games.

The three-game set opens with a duel between sophomore left-handers.

Baltimore's Brian Matusz (8-12) is on a roll, having won his last four starts. Even more impressive is that those victories came against Texas, The Chicago White Sox, Boston and New York – teams that are a combined 78 games above .500 for the season.

Matusz was solid in his last outing, allowing just three runs over six innings in a 4-3 triumph over the Yankees. The fourth overall pick in the 2008 draft is 5-1 over his last seven starts, and has allowed more than two runs just twice in that span.

The 23-year-old will look to erase his prior struggles against Toronto. He's 0-2 in two career starts against the Jays, having allowed 11 earned runs over just 4 1/3 innings. He made a brief appearance in their July 18 meeting, yanked after allowing six runs in just 1 2/3 innings en route to a 10-1 Toronto rout.

The Blue Jays counter with Mark Rzepczynski (1-4), who has been headed in the opposite direction of Matusz. The 25-year-old is 0-3 in his last five starts, and has failed to see the sixth inning in any of them.

Rzepczynski surrendered three runs over five innings in his last outing, but took the loss as the Texas Rangers cruised to an 8-1 triumph. Since beating the Los Angeles Angels with seven shutout innings on Aug. 13, Rzepczynski has been lit up for 21 runs over his past 22 innings.

Rzepczynski has made one career start against the Orioles, earning a loss after allowing three runs over six innings on July 12, 2009.

Toronto fans will get a glimpse of the future later in the series, as Kyle Drabek is slated to start in Wednesday's finale. Drabek, the son of former major-league pitcher Doug Drabek, was recalled from Double-A and will make three starts before the end of the season.

Drabek was the centerpiece of the off-season trade that sent ace Roy Halladay to the Philadelphia Phillies.