The homestand (4-3 so far) wraps up with three games against the second place Baltimore Orioles.
The Orioles have been playing good ball, and they've also been playing a lot of bad teams. Almost half of their schedule to date has come against some of the worst teams around - Detroit, Kansas City, the White Sox, Washington, and Oakland - and the Baltimores have done exactly what they're supposed to do, winning 15 of their 19 games against those five teams (for their part, the Jays have gone 8-2 against those same teams.)
As we should have expected, Adley Rutschman has been the Orioles' best player and this guy seems like an awfully good bet to win an MVP award at some point over the next few years. (Him and Wander Franco, one supposes.) Their other phenom, Gunnar Henderson, has been scuffling (still looking up at the Mendoza Line) but he's been drawing enough walks to still make an offensive contribution. Besides Rutschman, the offense is being carried mainly by the the outfielders, Austin Hays, Cedric Mullins, and Anthony Santander.
And of course Ryan Mountcastle will be delighted to see some Blue Jays pitchers dealing to him. Mountcastle has hit .322/.381/.634 in his 42 career games against the Jays, which is considerably better than his overall mark of .259/.310/.460, and he's hit 14 of his 69 career HRs against Toronto. He's had 9 at bats against Yusei Kikuchi, and has hit 3 HRs and a double.
Matchups!
Fri 19 May - Gibson (4-3, 4.87) vs Kikuchi (5-0, 3.89)
Sat 20 May - Rodriguez (2-1, 6.57) vs Manoah (1-4, 5.40)
Sun 21 May - Kremer (5-1, 4.94) vs Gausman (2-3, 3.27)
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20230519094851957