On the heels of yesterday's tough loss, the Orioles will try to rebound for the middle game of this three-game series in San Diego. The Padres rotation is mostly full of guys you probably haven't heard of (with the exception of Jon Garland) and Clayton Richard fits that mold. At first glance, I assumed that he must be getting by on luck, but Fangraphs tells me his FIP is 3.60 and xFIP is 4.05, both of which would lead the Orioles' pitching staff. So we can probably look forward to making yet another guy look like Cy Young. Well, I guess you can't spell "Clayton" without "Cy".
Kevin Millwood takes the mound for the Birds. His season is a mix of hard-luck outings and crappy outings. While on the subject of sabermetric ERA-analogues, Millwood's xFIP (Expected Fielding Independent Pitching) is a respectable 4.14. We can hope the cavernous Petco Park will be good for that 1.89 HR/9 rate. Unfortunately for him, and us, the offense probably still won't score him any runs. (Pre-game comments by editing fiend Eat More Esskay.)