The Tuesday night Orioles game thread: at Twins, 8:10pm

The significant thing in tonight's game is that Matt Wieters is catching in back-to-back games for the first time since, uh, before he revealed his injury, I guess. This would be a much more exciting prospect if Wieters had an OBP higher than its current .276 mark. It would also be more exciting if Wieters looked to be capable of making an attempt to frame pitches, which, frustrating of a concept as it is, nonetheless is a part of the game in the present day.

The Orioles offense stunk yesterday against a contact-oriented pitcher with an ERA above 4. Today they'll get their shot at a contact-oriented pitcher with an ERA of 3.04. That's Kyle Gibson. We saw yesterday why such a strategy can work in Target Field. Gibson actually has pretty consistent home/road numbers. At home he's got a 2.92 ERA this year. On the road it's 3.16. That's a guy chugging along towards a 200+ IP season who doesn't particularly care that his ERA is more than a point below his FIP.

Minnesota's lineup looks a little different since the O's are sending out Kevin Gausman, a righty, as opposed to Wei-Yin Chen, a lefty. It is nice that Gausman has actually been kept in the rotation. Let's hope that he shows that he belongs there. That will probably be one of the key questions facing the O's as they consider their chances of contending the rest of the season, actually.

Another one will be if they can actually hit on a regular basis. Things haven't been going very well on that score recently.