Saturday afternoon Orioles game thread: at Indians, 1:05

The Orioles are in action on Saturday afternoon against the Indians, looking to stop Cleveland’s streak of 16 wins in a row and, for themselves, looking to stay afloat in the race for the second AL wild card.

With 21 games to play, the Orioles can’t afford to fall much farther behind than they are right now. They might have already fallen too far. Three games to make up with three teams to pass could prove to be an insurmountable obstacle if any one of the teams above them gets hot over the final three weeks.

And facing this desperate situation, the Orioles turn to... Gabriel Ynoa? Well, it’s better than looking at Chris Tillman at the start of a game. Or at least, we’re all hoping that “He can’t possibly be any worse” is true. There have been times in the past couple of years that I’ve had that thought and it has been wrong a number of those times. It can always get worse.

Good news for the O’s is that they’re facing Josh Tomlin, who is the weakest of Cleveland’s starters. We all know that the Orioles are capable of getting dominated by crummy starters. They’re in a bad place if that happens again today.

Elsewhere in the league, the Rangers will also be playing the Yankees at 1:05. They’re a half game ahead of the O’s. The Angels, a game ahead of the O’s, are playing at 9 o’clock. The Twins, who everyone is chasing, play the Royals at 7:15. But it doesn’t really matter who else wins or loses if the O’s don’t win too.