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For a second straight night, the Orioles lineup will feature Steve Pearce, Jason Pridie, and Jonathan Schoop. What the heck, why not? The O's had gone 21 games in a row without scoring more than five runs. They finally snapped that on Wednesday night. Now... I don't know. Whatever. It's just not as fun this year.
Schoop's inclusion is a reason to be excited, just in the sense that he may be contributing to next year's team, so getting a first glimpse of him, especially after a great debut, is exciting. Schoop will get to face Blue Jays starter Mark Buehrle tonight. Buehrle has faced 12,005 batters in his MLB career. Schoop has four plate appearances.
I always find Buehrle to be impressive for this reason: he has pitched 200+ innings every season starting in 2001. That streak will not be broken this year. He has 200.1 innings headed into tonight. I wonder what it would be like if the Orioles had a pitcher like that.
It's Miguel Gonzalez starting for the O's against a diminished Toronto lineup that has been lacking both Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista. What will Gonzalez show us in his final start of the season? It's been a rougher road for Gonzalez this year compared to last, but he's still coming in with an ERA under 4 - which could change with a bad game tonight, but hey.
It's the shaving cream pie face t-shirt giveaway Thursday night. Perhaps the Orioles will have an occasion to dole out a shaving cream pie to a player after the game.