The Orioles travel to Texas tonight to open a four-game series against the Rangers that will take us to the All-Star Break. Jeremy Guthrie takes the mound against Tommy Hunter, who's run up a 5-0 record on a 1.98 ERA in six starts since being called up from AAA on June 5. He's got 159.1 career major league innings so he's probably the kind of guy who will completely shut us down. Hold on to your butts.
The high-octane Rangers offense has more runs scored than any team that isn't named the Yankees or the Red Sox: 441 on the season, with a differential of +85. Probably also a poor omen considering Guthrie's allowed 14 HR in 17 games started on the season. Also, we'll be quickly reminded that Ian Kinsler is on Texas - his career OPS against the Birds is .984 and seemingly every game last season he obliterated us.
That's all too depressing. Here's some good news. Vladimir Guerrero is in the lineup tonight and he is 1-17 in his career against Guthrie. So hey, that's something.
(Statistics retrieved from baseball-reference.com - as if there is any other place.)
The thing about baseball is that in any given game a miracle can happen, right? As much as the O's bum me out I somehow still watch every night thinking maybe tonight I'll see a win. And there's no better place than this to find your fellow mentally-deranged fans. So fire up your Ron Washington cocaine jokes and let's have a good time. Go O's!