Monday night Orioles game thread: at Padres, 10:10

The Orioles west coast swing has been a lot more fun than expected so far. There are still two games left to get through, including the last of the 10pm Eastern starts in tonight’s game against the Padres.

If you are making the choice to stay up to watch most or all of this game, you can already feel confident that you are making a mistake before the game even begins. That’s because the Orioles are calling up David Hess to start the game, with control-challenged reliever Evan Phillips headed back down to the minors.

Hess had been kicked into the bullpen when he was sent to Norfolk in June, but his last two outings were starts of four and five innings, so perhaps the O’s are giving him another go as a starter. The O’s are desperate enough right now. They might be 13-12 over their last 25 games, but the starting rotation is still kind of a mess.

The Monday night Orioles lineup is missing Dwight Smith Jr., who’s still out after calf soreness ended his day early on Saturday. It’s also missing Chris Davis, to the extent that any lineup can be said to be missing a .181/.262/.305 batter.

1. Jonathan Villar - SS
2. Trey Mancini - RF
3. Anthony Santander - LF
4. Renato Núñez - 1B
5. Jace Peterson - 3B
6. Hanser Alberto - 2B
7. Chance Sisco - C
8. Stevie Wilkerson - CF
9. David Hess - P

These guys get to face rookie Chris Paddack, who’s posted a 0.895 WHIP over his first 17 big league starts. Whoa! Paddack has a 2.84 ERA but a 4.02 FIP, so maybe regression is in his future, and maybe that future will start to play out tonight. Then maybe Hess will pitch well enough that it matters if the offense gets to Paddack a little bit. That’s a lot of maybes.