Orioles Game 69 Game Thread: at Rangers, 8:05

I don't think I can express the ridiculousness of this game any better than the first several paragraphs of this morning's Roch Kubatko post. It should have been played two months ago, but it wasn't, and now the Orioles are out an off day because of it.

No one is going to feel sorry for them, however, especially not the teams chasing them in the standings. The Blue Jays do in fact get an off day, while the Red Sox play the first of four games against the sinking White Sox. Old friend Miguel Gonzalez could do us a solid, or put us in a hole.

As for tonight's O's game, it's weird. Not even the full O's team is there. Starting pitchers who won't be pitching in the game aren't there. Brad Brach didn't make the trip since he's been used in the previous two games and wouldn't be used today regardless.

The O's can always help themselves by winning. They could use a good start from the thus-far winless Kevin Gausman, who, in fairness, is partly only winless because his teammates hate scoring runs for him. But he's also winless because there have been games like his last start, where he gave up six runs in three innings to the Red Sox.

Gausman shouldn't expect much run support today, not with a left-handed starting pitcher on the mound for Texas and Manny Machado serving the second game of his suspension. It may not be pretty.