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#964 Baltimore Orioles (Morton) – over Texas Rangers (Latz) 6:35 PM CT

The Orioles are now only 6.5 games out of the final wild card spot in the American League despite a nightmare start to the season. The entire American League has been filled with mediocrity with only five teams more than three games above .500 at this point in the season and only the White Sox and Athletics are really out of the playoff race. Baltimore has gone 15-8 since late May with the talented lineup finally putting things together while the bullpen has emerged as a solid unit with a 3.38 ERA in the past 10 games. Charlie Morton had a very slow start to the season, but he has an 11.7 K/9 and a 2.29 ERA while going 4-0 since May 10, as a brief stint in the bullpen seems to have returned him to his past successful form. The Orioles have poor season numbers hitting vs. left-handers but the recent splits have been fantastic, batting .330 with 6.8 runs per nine vs. southpaws over the past 10 games. Texas in contrast is batting .208 with 2.5 runs per nine vs. right-handers in that span as the Rangers have been a very disappointing offensive team all season. Texas sits a few games ahead of Baltimore in the AL standings, but the Rangers are 2-5 in the past seven games and have topped three runs just once in that span. Baltimore won 6-0 last night with a great eight-inning outing from Trevor Rogers resting the bullpen as Andrew Kittredge used only five pitches to close out the win in the ninth inning. The Orioles outhit Texas 11-3 last night and in the past 10 games Baltimore has scored twice as many runs per nine as Texas. The Rangers are just 15-25 in road games while Baltimore is 8-2 in the past 10 Oriole Park games as these teams are likely to trade places in the AL standings in the coming weeks.