The Tampa Bay Rays will kick off a three game series tonight with the Baltimore Orioles tonight at 7:05 p.m. at Oriole Park in Camden Yards. The game can be live streamed for free here, or watched with higher quality video for a subscription fee here. Orioles fans can listen to the game at 1090 WBAL, while Rays fans can tune in to WDAE 620.
The Rays will send struggling starter Jeremy Hellickson to the mound (1-2, 5.25 ERA) as Tampa Bay looks to avoid too far behind the Orioles, Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees in the division race. For two seasons Hellickson has posted stellar ERAs despite advanced metrics spelling out how he was pitching over his head.
So far in 2013, Hellickson's numbers have done worse than regressing to their mean; they've swung completely the other way. Hellickson's home run to fly ball ratio (16.7 percent) is the highest it's been in his major league career, while his strand rate is as low as its ever been (68.8 percent).
The Orioles starter, Jason Hammel (5-1, 4.93 ERA) has been almost as shaky as Hellickson, but far more fortunate when it comes to wins and losses. Hammel was Baltimore's best starter in 2012, when they unexpectedly made the playoffs as a wild card, but in 2013 his ERA is up by a run and a half and his strikeouts per nine innings have dropped by more than two.
Speaking on his recent struggles, Hammel said, "Obviously it's frustrating. Sooner or later it'll become easy, I've just got to keep putting in the hard work and trusting, and being confident in what I do." Luckily for Hammel, his teammates must like him. The Orioles offense has scored seven runs per game when Hammel steps onto the rubber.
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