If you recall, prior to the All-Star break the Orioles had just climbed a hurdle they\u2019d failed to yet surpass: a four-game win streak. Now, they\u2019re a bit battered and bruised, what with late-inning relievers Ryan Helsley and Keegan Akin on the shelf, and hottest-hitter-of-late Blaze Alexander sidelined, sadly, with a fractured hand, thanks to KC\u2019s wayward Lucas Erceg.<\/p>\n
Tonight, the Birds fly the coop for three games against the Houston Astros. Game 1 is tonight, with right hander Dean Kremer (1-2, 4.09 ERA) facing off against righty Peter Lambert (8-5, 3.14 ERA)<\/p>\n
Lambert is only in the Houston rotation due to a surfeit of starter injuries, but the fifth-year journeyman, who\u2019d owned a career 6.28 ERA to date, has been a nice surprise for the Astros. He\u2019s done a good job of limiting contact, with an excellent .204 opposing average against. The righty has a really extensive eight-pitch mix that is primarily fastball and changeup-driven. Back in April, Lambert threw 4.1 innings and allowed two runs.<\/p>\n
As for the Orioles\u2019 Kremer, this will be just his start of the year, due, first to his not making the team out of spring training, and then an injured quad. It\u2019s nice to have him back, under the circumstances. In four starts so far, he\u2019s allowed 12 runs in 22 innings. He\u2019s leaning heavily on a pitch that\u2019s new for him, a splitter. So far, so good: hitters are batting just .176 against it. Against these Astros, Kremer has pitched well, although the fearsome Yordan Alvarez has reached base against him in six of 10 PAs, and Jose Altuve is 9-for-20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you recall, prior to the All-Star break the Orioles had just climbed a hurdle they\u2019d failed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[133602,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-377799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-baltimore-orioles-game-information","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}