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The Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles open a series in Baltimore with the home side as the -129 favorite, and the total sits at 8.5.

Freddy Peralta arrives with a 7.53 ERA in three starts since the trade to Tampa Bay, while Trevor Rogers counters with a 2.28 mark across 12 outings since June 1.

My Rays vs. Orioles predictions back the home team, and the Over on a total that hasn't accounted for what the visiting starter has become. Read my MLB picks for Friday, Aug. 21.

Who will win Rays vs Orioles today: Orioles moneyline (-132)

I like the Baltimore Orioles here and would play them to -145. This is a less-than-ideal matchup for inconsistent Tampa Bay Rays starter Freddy Peralta. 

The Orioles put 40.5% of their batted balls in the air and walk at a 10.2% clip, the third-best mark in MLB, which isn't a profile that looks good for Peralta on paper. He's allowed an 18.7% home run per fly ball rate and 20 home runs in 128 innings.

The bat-missing ability that used to help him is gone too, as his strikeout rate has fallen from 28.2% to 21.5%, while in-zone contact has been climbing to 81.5%. The bottom 40 percentile hard-hit rate reflects that too.

This feels like a game when the power bats of Baltimore's lineup get going, and a few homers from the likes of Coby Mayo, Pete Alonso, and Gunnar Henderson make a difference. 

COVERS INTEL:Freddy Peralta has thrown his changeup 21.6% of the time this season, up from 9.7% in 2021, and it's gone from a swing-and-miss pitch to a hittable one, allowing a .258 average and .403 slugging with the whiff rate down to 28.1%

Rays vs Orioles Over/Under pick: Over 8.5 (-103)

Peralta's fastball is also vulnerable. The O's hit it at a top-10 rate, according to virtually any metric, and he throws it 53.5% of the time while yielding a .471 slugging percentage with a 50.2% hard-hit rate. That's another blinking signal for perhaps a multiple-homer effort from Baltimore's bats.

Meanwhile, the Rays own the best contact rate in MLB at 78.9% and the lowest strikeout rate at 18.7%. Trevor Rogers can't punish that, as he's grading in the 33rd percentile in strikeout rate and the 34th percentile in whiff rate.

This is playable to -110 given the two suspect arms involved.

Rays vs Orioles home run prediction: Gunnar Henderson (+405)

Fifteen of the 20 homers Peralta has allowed have come against left-handed hitters across 83 innings. Those sluggers have posted a .270/.332/.477 slash line, and he's surrendered a 19.2% air pull rate. Gunnar Henderson is Baltimore's primary left-handed power bat, and Camden Yards is where Peralta's fastball problem gets highlighted even more given its relatively homer-friendly dimensions for lefties.

Play this to +330.

Rays vs Orioles weather

Temperatures are a bit cooler than previous nights in Baltimore, reaching the upper 70s, with no notable wind.

Rays vs Orioles odds

• Moneyline: Rays +120 | Orioles -129
• Run line: Rays +1.5 | Orioles -1.5
• Over/Under: Over 8.5 | Under 8.5

Rays vs Orioles trend

The Orioles have won six of the last seven head-to-head matchups with the Rays. Find more MLB betting trends for Rays vs. Orioles.

How to watch Rays vs Orioles and game info

Rays vs Orioles latest injuries

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Meet the Mets

The Mets had the day off yesterday after taking their series from the Padres, and having won 11 of their past 15 games, they’re set to play the first-place White Sox in a three-game series in Chicago this weekend.

That 11-4 record since the break is tied with the Rays for the best record in baseball over that span.

Awful Announcing ranked SNY’s booth third in baseball, which isn’t a slight but is factually incorrect, as GKR are the best.

Speaking of excellent Mets broadcasters, the team is set to honor Howie Rose with a retirement ceremony ahead of its final home game of the season on September 20.

Around the National League East

The Good Phight writes that the Dodgers’ struggles present an opportunity for the Phillies.

Grand Holmes and the Braves shut out the White Sox to avoid what would’ve been a postponement-delayed sweep at the hands of Chicago.

Jacob deGrom looked fantastic as he struck out ten, walked one and gave up just one hit in six scoreless innings as the Rangers beat the Nationals.

Around Major League Baseball

The Mariners lost to the Brewers yesterday afternoon, but Seattle is set to call up Kade Anderson, one of the best pitching prospects in the sport.

Mark Walter’s financial dealings—as they pertain to his ownership of the Dodgers—have been an issue in the past, and those allegations have resurfaced in light of the probe currently affecting him.

The Yankees completed a sweep of the Orioles.

Zach Neto had quite the night at the plate as the Angels scored 18 runs in a win over the Astros.

The Reds committed a two-out error in the ninth inning, handing their rival Cardinals a victory in the process.

Reds rookie Sal Stewart has a shot at reaching the 100 RBI mark.

With a win over the Giants, the Guardians won a series at home for the first time since June. The American League Wild Card race is something else.

A great start from Shane Bieber helped the Blue Jays defeat the rival Rays.

It’s rare to find a series between two American League teams that has no playoff implications, but they do exist. The Royals beat the A’s for their fifth-straight win.

Here are MLB.com’s latest hitter power rankings.

Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue

We shared the latest episode of Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World Series.

This Date in Mets History

Tom Seaver made a fantastic start at Shea Stadium on this date in 1977, but it would’ve been even better if he had made it for the Mets rather than against them.

Having wrapped up a road trip with a series victory in Baltimore, the Yankees are now set to return home this weekend. While every game at this stage of the season matters, the Blue Jays are coming to town seemingly rejuvenated in the playoff race.

These two teams met just last weekend in Toronto. The Blue Jays ended up taking two out of three, but all were close. (Seemingly every Yankees’ game is close because the offense can’t generate enough offense to pull away from teams.) With the AL a mediocre mess outside the top, Toronto has worked its way back into the playoff picture, so they’ll be hoping to continue what they did last weekend, while the Yankees will hope to try and keep cutting into their deficit to the Rays in the AL East standings.

Before things get going tonight, here’s a look at the expected pitching matchups for the next couple days.

Friday: Cam Schlittler vs. TBD (7:05 pm ET)

Obviously, Schlittler has been absolutely incredible this season and is on the shortlist for possible AL Cy Young winners. The only real negative about his year is the home/road splits, where he has a 3.95 ERA while allowing a .725 OPS in the Bronx, compared to 1.14 and .467 on the road. That being said, he is coming off an excellent outing at Yankee Stadium, striking out 11 Braves while allowing one run in seven innings. We shall see what this start has in store.

With Toronto having multiple starters on the IL on top of trading away Kevin Gausman at the deadline, they’ve been having some bullpen games, as we saw when the Yankees faced them last weekend. That’s presumably what the case will be in this game. The Yankees were held to just one run on four hits in that game, so it’s hard for them to fare much worse, should this indeed be a Johnny Wholestaff outing.

Saturday: Ryan Weathers vs. Dylan Cease (1:35 pm ET)

Injuries have prevented the likes of Weathers and Will Warren from exiting the rotation, as the Yankees still can’t get their theoretical A+ rotation all healthy at once. That being said, Weathers has absolutely held up his end of the bargain of late. Over his last four outings, he has a 0.69 ERA in 26 total innings. That included a one run in 7.1 innings against this very Blue Jays team last weekend.

We’ll miss a possible battle of Cy Young contenders by one day, as Toronto’s — Cease — will go on Saturday. The Yankees came out victorious in the game in total, but Cease certainly looked the part last Sunday. He struck out 10 Yankee hitters in 6.2 innings, allowing just two runs on two hits.

Sunday: Carlos Rodón vs. José Soriano (1:35 pm ET)

Rodón made his return from the IL earlier this week against the Orioles. He did well enough, going four innings while allowing one run on two hits, with the run coming on a homer. He did only throw 66 pitches, meaning he probably won’t be going for a full outing in this appearance either.

Despite trading Gauman, the Jays still picked up Soriano from the Angels to add to their rotation. For the season, he has a 3.29 ERA and a 3.78 FIP, with 2.76 and 3.88 marks since going to Toronto. The Yankees missed him when these teams met last weekend, and they also didn’t face him prior to the trade when he was still with the Angels. The last time the Yankees saw Soriano was last June, where he shut them out over seven frames.

In recent years, it’s felt like there’s always another exciting Brewers prospect knocking on the door.

When Jackson Chourio made his major league debut on Opening Day 2024, he was the No. 2 prospect in baseball and the best prospect the Brewers had had in years. A little over a year later, Jacob Misiorowski made his major league debut and quickly became one of the best pitchers in baseball. Brewers fans began this season clamoring for Cooper Pratt and Luis Lara, and both have more than held their own since arriving in Milwaukee.

Even with the graduations of those four prospects, along with numerous others, Milwaukee’s farm system is still considered to be one of — if not the best — in baseball. Reinforcements are coming, whether that be in September or at the start of next season.

There are six position players who stand out to me as realistic candidates to be the next top prospect to make their major league debut. Let’s take a look at them:

Andrew Fischer

Fischer, a slightly older prospect (21 when drafted), played three years in college and was seen as a remarkably developed hitter heading into the draft. He’s putting up power numbers that we haven’t seen in the Brewers’ farm system in a long, long time, carrying a 1.021 OPS into the final weeks of August while hitting 37 home runs between High-A Wisconsin (20) and Double-A Biloxi (17).

Fischer seems like the perfect candidate for a late-season promotion, but — simply put — the issue is that he’s struck out way too much all year, especially with Biloxi (35.2%).

Now, a high strikeout rate doesn’t mean you can’t be a productive — even great — major league hitter. And, as some Brewers fans have pointed out, striking out a lot might be an acceptable tradeoff for a team that currently ranks last in the majors in home runs. However, successful sluggers who strike out a lot are usually either extreme outliers in another area or great at not chasing pitches out of the zone. That second profile is one you see in a lot of “three true outcomes” sluggers, guys like Kyle Schwarber and Munetaka Murakami, who have terrible strikeout and whiff rates but are selective enough to force pitchers to challenge them in the zone.

Fischer’s chase rate in Double-A does suggest that he could be that type of hitter, but you never know. For every Schwarber, Murakami, or Joey Gallo, there’s a Keston Hiura who can’t figure it out at the big-league level despite great production in the minors. Would the Brewers, an organization that has historically tended to be fairly conservative with prospect promotions and professed a “bites at the apple” approach, risk messing with the development of their massively talented 2025 first-round pick just to make a deeper run this year? I doubt it.

The final thing to consider with Fischer is the organizational depth chart around him. Fischer is a corner infielder whose eventual defensive home is probably first base. While Jake Bauers might end up priced out of Milwaukee after the season he’s had, the Brewers should still have Andrew Vaughn next year (arbitration results and lockout notwithstanding). They’ll also have Luke Adams and Blake Burke, both of whom have had great seasons with less concerning strikeout rates and are already in Triple-A.

Having said all this, Fischer is probably one of the least likely players on this list to be the next top prospect called up, but I also wouldn’t completely rule it out. He’s been electric all year, and 37 home runs are 37 home runs. If the Brewers decide the offense needs a spark down the stretch, there isn’t another player in the organization who has shown an ability to provide it quite like Fischer has.

Blake Burke

Since changing his swing to prioritize getting the ball in the air more often, Burke has become an absolute monster at the plate. He destroyed Double-A pitching this year, hitting for average (.285), getting on base (.367), hitting 30 home runs, and, somewhat surprisingly for a first baseman, stealing 28 bases. His 23.6% strikeout rate also looks significantly better than Fischer’s, and Fischer is probably his main competition for the “power-hitting corner infielder” call-up should the Brewers decide they need that profile. Burke also has the advantage of already being in Triple-A, having been promoted a couple of weeks ago.

The immediate problem for Burke is finding somewhere to play.

Burke will be a first baseman, and coming out of college, a lot of scouts saw him as a future DH-only guy. While he’s been much better than that with Biloxi and should eventually be at least a fringe-average defender at first base, he doesn’t have great range and wouldn’t be able to play the outfield or third base at the level the Brewers would want. While Fischer, in practice, probably isn’t much more flexible than Burke, in theory he is. If Milwaukee needed a bat who could also play third base — or maybe even the outfield — in a pinch, Burke wouldn’t be the guy. Since the Brewers aren’t hurting for first basemen in Triple-A or the majors, that matters a little bit.

Luke Adams

There’s something very Brewers about Adams potentially being the next guy promoted. He was a 12th-round pick in 2022, has never been considered one of the flashiest prospects in the organization, and has basically forced his way up the system’s rankings by getting on base and hitting the ball hard.

Adams sort of reminds me of Pratt and Lara in a way. Like Pratt and Lara, Adams has been surrounded by flashier, higher-ranked prospects who play his position, but he’s just kept producing and working, and it’s led to him knocking on the door of the big leagues.

Adams doesn’t have the prospect pedigree of Made or Fischer, and he hasn’t put up the same ridiculous power numbers as Burke, but he checks just about every other box. He’s already in Triple-A. He can play both corner infield spots. Most importantly, he has a .906 OPS with 13 home runs in 202 Triple-A at-bats. If the Brewers need a corner infielder or bench bat and want someone who has produced both in Triple-A and throughout his career, Adams is their guy.

Jett Williams

If I had written this article this offseason, Williams probably would have been the obvious answer after the Brewers traded their ace from the previous season to acquire him and Brandon Sproat.

Instead, his first year in the Brewers organization has been relatively disappointing. Williams hasn’t hit particularly well in Triple-A, and, maybe more importantly, several players have seemingly passed him on the organizational depth chart.

He started the season in Nashville alongside Cooper Pratt. Pratt got called up first. When David Hamilton went down, the Brewers went with Lara and Greg Jones. Then, when Pratt and Ortiz both got banged up and seemingly created another opportunity to give Williams some run, he reaggravated his wrist and went on the IL.

Williams posted an .867 OPS in Double-A last year, but only a .718 OPS in 151 at-bats with the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate — a number roughly in line with his .724 OPS in 359 at-bats this year. I still really like Williams as a prospect. He can play both the infield and outfield, has power and speed, and gets on base even when he isn’t hitting particularly well. He’s versatile and has been productive enough that he’ll eventually get his call-up, but he hasn’t forced the Brewers’ hand thus far.

Josh Adamczewski

I know this is a little crazy. Jesús Made, the No. 1 prospect in baseball, whose OPS has hovered around .800 all year in Double-A, has played more games at the level than Adamczewski. In fact, Adamczewski had played just 16 games above Low-A coming into this season. By all conventional wisdom, if I’m going to pick a dark horse, someone below Triple-A and with less than 37 home runs, it should be Made, not Adamczewski.

But bear with me.

The case for Adamczewski is simple: he hits the cover off the ball. Against everybody, at every level. At every level in which he’s had more than 60 at-bats, he’s posted a .900 OPS — except for his .872 OPS in 46 games this year. That’s what his numbers look like while adjusting to what many consider the hardest jump in the minor leagues.

I’m not box-score scouting, either. He has a fast, compact swing that should be able to handle velocity while allowing him to adjust to off-speed offerings without throwing off his timing.

Legitimately beautiful swing:

To reiterate, this is my dark horse pick. I don’t think the Brewers are going to call up Adamczewski anytime soon. He came up as a second baseman but has played exclusively in the outfield with Biloxi, so it’s not like there’s a natural fit for him on the major league roster. I just think that if the Brewers wanted to throw a Double-A bat into the lineup and see if they could capture lightning in a bottle, Adamczewski might actually be their best bet for immediate production.

Honorable mention: Tyson Hardin

This might be a bad analogy, but you can think of Hardin a little like Adamczewski — a late-round pick who rose to become a top 10 organizational prospect not because of overwhelming raw talent or athleticism, but because of skill and consistent production. At least, all of that was true before the last two months. Hardin has been getting blown up since the start of July and now has a 5.14 ERA through 16 starts (though his 4.29 xERA and 3.43 FIP indicates some bad luck). Even with guys like Logan Henderson, Robert Gasser, Shane Drohan, etc. now in Milwaukee, Hardin probably wouldn’t get the call over Coleman Crow or Brandon Sproat.

So, who’s next?

If I had to guess right now, I’d say Adams.

He’s already in Triple-A, can play multiple positions where he could be called upon in case of injury, and has played well enough to deserve an opportunity. The Brewers have options at the corner infield spots, but they’re thin if anyone goes down, as we just saw when they had to sign and start guys like Jihwan Bae, Greg Jones, and Braden Shewmake. Andrew Vaughn has played double-digit games at third base, and Gary Sánchez has played first base. Adams wouldn’t be a downgrade.

Editor’s Note: Adams is currently on the injured list, and it isn’t completely clear how severe his injury is, though it seems likely we’ll see him back on the field in the next couple of weeks. He still seems like a solid candidate to join the team as Milwaukee’s 14th position player come September.

While that’s my answer, the more interesting takeaway might be that there isn’t an obvious one. Pratt and Lara have already graduated, and the Brewers still have several legitimate prospects who could realistically enter the major league conversation between now and next season. A year ago, Brewers fans were waiting for Pratt and Lara. Now they’re here, and there’s already another group coming up behind them.

And behind that group are Made, Peña, Fischer, Braylon Payne, Brady Ebel, and plenty of others. It’s a good time to be a Brewers fan.

The Atlanta Braves earned their 75th win of the season after Thursday’s 2-0 win over the Chicago White Sox. Grant Holmes and Austin Riley allowed Atlanta to avoid the sweep during the makeup game. Holmes got the start, lasting six innings and allowing just one hit. He walked three and struck out three. 

Austin Riley drove in both of the Atlanta runs. He doubled in the third and singled in the seventh to give the Braves the edge. Though a makeup game, the Braves desperately needed this win following a tough series with the Minnesota Twins. 

The Braves are back in action this afternoon, as the weekend series kicks off with the Milwaukee Brewers. 

More Braves News:

Pitching prospect Luke Sinnard has been promoted to Double-A and will suit up for the Columbus Clingstones. 

Brett Sears struck out eight on Wednesday in Double-A. More in the minor league recap. 

MLB News:

The Arizona Diamondbacks are transferring Ketel Marte from the restricted list to the 10-day injured list. He is currently dealing with inflammation in his knee.

Athletics shortstop Jacob Wilson is likely done for the season. He has been dealing with a shoulder injury and is headed to Sacramento to see a doctor. 

The San Francisco Giants placed righty Keaton Winn on the 15-day IL with right elbow neuritis. The move is retroactive to August 19.

From the Feed:

Predict the outcome of the Braves-Brewers series here.

I like doing statistical analysis for two primary reasons. There are two main biases that it combats and we are all prey to those biases at one time or another. The first form of bias is what I would call immediacy bias. A great example of that is the string of short starts that the Astros are currently going through. The temptation is to assume that this has been constant throughout the season when that is almost never the case. There are ebbs and flows to these things, so looking at overall numbers can help us combat that bias.

The second bias is a local bias. We watch the Astros. Some of us watch them religiously. So, when we are watching one team 162 times a season and the other teams maybe a handful of times, it is easy to look at what your local group is doing and assume that it is either really good or really bad. We simply don’t have anything to compare it to. This becomes important when we are looking at relative strengths and weaknesses of a team. This can come into play in terms of game to game strategy or long-term questions about how the team should be structured.

We call this the lab because I like to start with observations that can be formed into a testable hypothesis. In this case, the hypothesis is that the Astros overly rely on their bullpen for innings because their starters do not go deep enough into games. We can test that simply by comparing them with the rest of the American League to see if that is true comparatively. We will start with the starting pitchers only in terms of innings pitched and ERA.

I should note that the most significant thing here is not that the Astros are 14th in starter ERA, but the gap between them and the Twins for 13th place. As my grandfather used to say, they are so far down in the cellar that they have to pipe light to them. Certainly, if one were to apply park effects to these numbers you could make an argument that the Astros rotation has been the worst in the American League this season when adjusted for inflation.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that they are 13th in starter innings. The White Sox low total is jarring, but the rest of the group kind of settles in. There are three teams within 15 innings of the Astros on the season. Over the course of 120 games, 15 innings is not a completely significant sum. These numbers serve to answer our main question: are our observations valid? The simple answer is yes. This team doesn’t pitch as deeply into games as most of the other teams in the league. The overall numbers include those first couple of months when things were rough, but on balance this has not been even an average starting rotation.

Obviously, we need some more information before we decide whether the lack of starting innings is a good thing or bad thing. Most would reflexively state it isn’t, but I would caution people before making that conclusion. Throughout baseball history, bullpen ERAs typically outpace starting pitching ERA when taken collectively. So, we should expect a positive differential. I’ll throw in the starting to reliever differentials so we see what is happening throughout the league.

Someone once said there are lies, damn lies, and statistics but that was obviously a gross simplification. Numbers are what they are and there is nothing that will change them. The question comes in how we interpret them. The Astros are third in bullpen innings. That is a fact and there is nothing that can change that. The question comes in how we choose to interpret that information.

Conventional wisdom would say that leading in bullpen innings is a bad thing. This is usually where the old-timers wax poetic about how pitchers used to finish their games back when men were men and sheep were nervous. I’d offer a different outlook. I’d simply say that you want to maximize your best performers as much as you possibly can. That means every manager has a different task, The managers with a negative differential are seeing their pens do worse than their starters. So, they should maximize starter innings as much as possible. The teams with positive differentials should maximize bullpen innings.

The best managers are the ones that can adapt to what their teams are actually doing. The Astros have the largest differential in the American League and likely the biggest in baseball. It may seem counterintuitive, but they should probably lean into that as they have lately. Obviously, there are workload concerns that can’t be ignored, but as a simple proposition, the pen is the best part of their pitching staff and that has been true even more so since May 1st.

Of course, this has broader implications in terms of roster construction. What is peculiar about this team is that you have a group of pitchers that have been effective in relief, but not effective as starters. That list includes Tatsuya Imai, Cristian Javier, and Kei-wei Teng. There is another group of pitchers that have worked heavier workloads in multi-inning opportunities. It’s a challenge for any manager, but this team may actually be better sticking to four and five inning starts and letting the pen carry the load. They run the risk of running out of gas, but the alternative is throwing out the worst rotation in the American League and hoping things work out.

The Dodgers roster has been a carousel of All-Star (both current and former) talent playing nearly every day and the taxi squad members whose role is equally vital to the team’s success.

One of those former taxi squad members, Santiago Espinal, has found a new home within the NL West. Espinal signed a minor league deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday, as per an announcement from the Triple-A Reno Aces via X.

It’s been a chaotic 2026 season for Espinal, who initially latched onto a minor league deal with the Dodgers and eventually made the opening day roster. He played in 36 games with the big league squad, slashing .268/.276/.375 with a home run and seven RBI across 60 plate appearances. He was released by the Dodgers on June 18 before signing a minor league deal with the Texas Rangers on July 2, only to once again be released 26 days later. Espinal slashed .262/.333/.310 with six RBI with the Triple-A Round Rock Express.

Links

Right now the biggest talking point for the Dodgers outside of Shohei Ohtani’s battle for MVP is the turbulent, lackluster first year of the Kyle Tucker experience. As the Dodgers prepare to open a three-game set against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday, all eyes will be pointed towards Tucker and whether he’ll continue to underperform at home or possibly find his old, pre-Dodger self at the plate.

Mookie Betts and Miguel Rojas both sat down and spoke about Tucker’s difficult season in the most recent episode of the On Base with Mookie Betts podcast, where Rojas touched on having his teammate’s back despite the challenges.

“I have all my confidence in Tucker… I am a true believer that when you feel good, you play good. When you’re going out there everyday knowing the guys have your back, it’s a good feeling… I really want him to believe that the opinions that matter are the ones that are to your left and to your right.”

Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports that Cox customers will finally be able to watch Dodger games on SportsNet LA.

On Friday, for the first time in 13 years, Cox subscribers within the Dodgers’ broadcast territory will be able to watch the team on their local television home. Fans can find SportsNet LA on Channel 63 in Orange County, Channel 54 in Palos Verdes, Channel 36 in Santa Barbara and Channel 50 in Las Vegas.

Johnathan Mayo, Jim Callis and Sam Dykstra of MLB.com picked Josue de Paula as the Dodgers prospect most likely to get a big league callup this year.