New York @ Baltimore preview
Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Last Meeting ( Sep 18, 2010 ) NY Yankees 11, Baltimore 3
The New York Yankees are expected to welcome Andy Pettitte back to the rotation as they look to complete a three-game sweep over the Baltimore Orioles.
The Yankees have the best record in baseball, sitting half a game ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League East, but Pettitte’s veteran presence should help the team after it opened its current road trip 1-5.
Outside of CC Sabathia, who earned his 20th win of the year Saturday, New York’s starting rotation hasn’t been great lately. A.J. Burnett is up-and-down while Phil Hughes and Javier Vazquez are both going through slumps.
Pettitte hasn’t started in the bigs in two months after he went on the disabled with a left groin strain, but he was having a great year before the injury going 11-2 with a 2.88 ERA. Pettitte is 27-6 lifetime against the Orioles and is 7-0 with a 3.02 ERA in nine starts against them since 2007.
The Yankees (90-58) are 13-4 against Baltimore (58-90) this season and are looking to close out the sweep before Tampa Bay heads to the Bronx for a huge four-game series.
New York’s high-priced offense continues to roll along. The Yankees lead the majors with 789 runs and Robinson Cano became the team’s third infielder to crack the 100-RBI mark on Saturday. Alex Rodriguez, who is 4-for-9 with two home runs, four RBIs and four runs scored in this series, has 111 RBIs this year. Mark Teixeira has 30 home runs and 101 RBIs this season.
Cano cracked his 28th homer, a two-run shot, in Game 2 of the series to up his season RBI total to 101. Cano has a .579 career batting average at Camden Yards and is 5-for-6 lifetime against Baltimore’s scheduled starter, Chris Tillman (1-4, 6.32 ERA).
The 22-year-old right-hander is coming off a pair of decent starts for the O’s. Tillman picked up a no-decision in an 8-7 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Sept. 9, allowing three runs in 5 1/3 innings, and allowed just one run in his last outing against the Detroit Tigers. He went 6 2/3 innings in that one, managing to stay out of trouble even though he walked six. Tillman is 1-1 with a 4.91 ERA against the Yankees.
Robert Andino has homered, his first and second of the year, in the first two games of the series for Baltimore.