The Orioles (63-68) open a three-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals (66-65) on Tuesday night at Busch Stadium, the first stop on a nine-game, three-city road trip that also runs through Sacramento against the Athletics and Denver against the Rockies before Baltimore returns home.
The timing matters. Baltimore enters the trip two games back of the final American League wild-card spot after a rough stretch — swept by the Yankees, then a 2-4 homestand that included taking two of three from the AL-best Rays before dropping Sunday's finale 3-1. Manager Craig Albernaz was asked about the pressure of a long trip like this one and pushed back on the framing entirely.
"We can't look nine games ahead. We have to look at the game in front of us," Albernaz said. "Where teams go awry is that they'll look at the finish line before they actually run the race."
The schedule itself offers a real opportunity regardless of how Albernaz wants to talk about it. After St. Louis, Baltimore moves on to an Athletics team with one of the worst records in baseball and a Rockies club buried in the NL West — a considerably softer slate than the Rays and Yankees the Orioles just finished playing. It's not unlike the shape of Baltimore's last extended road trip earlier this month, which the club used to steady itself heading into its most recent homestand. Outfielder Colton Cowser said the group's confidence heading into this one is "through the roof," pointing to how that previous trip ended. Whether this stretch becomes the launching point for a real playoff push, or another chapter in a season that's had trouble building on its better moments, should start to become clear over the next week and a half.
Chris Bassitt takes the ball for Baltimore in the opener, and his own recent form is a reasonable proxy for the team's broader story this year — solid when healthy, undone by circumstance. Bassitt returned in June from surgery to remove bone spurs in his lower back, and he's looked sharper his last two times out in August, allowing five earned runs with nine strikeouts across 11 innings. For the season he's 4-4 with a 5.08 ERA.
Bassitt felt genuinely good about his stuff in his last time out, even with the results mixed. "I thought my stuff was better than last time. Ground balls happen. I'm a ground ball pitcher, so sometimes games like this happen," he said afterward. "The only two things I really didn't like was the Jazz walk — that's on me — and then just one too many fastballs to Ben Rice. He was late on heaters a bunch of times in a row, and I just threw one too many." He also described adjusting his approach mid-start once the grounders started finding holes. "Honestly, I was trying to get more fly balls, just because I thought that was the best way to go. Usually I want to get them on the ground, but today they were finding holes, so we adjusted more to a fly-ball approach. Overall it was fine."
He's faced St. Louis once before, in 2025 while still with Toronto, allowing four earned runs over seven innings; across five career starts against the Cardinals he's 2-1 with a 6.92 ERA. Left-hander Matthew Liberatore (5-11, 5.04 ERA) is projected to start for St. Louis, though Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol has been juggling his rotation with Andre Pallante and Hunter Dobbins both hurt and Kyle Leahy working under an innings restriction.
Baltimore catches St. Louis at a genuinely low point. The Cardinals were swept over the weekend by the Phillies, and Sunday's finale was the kind of loss that lingers — St. Louis built a 4-0 lead behind RBI singles from Alec Burleson and a solo homer from José Fermín, only to see the bullpen collapse in the ninth. Edmundo Sosa's bases-loaded double and a Brendan De La Cruz RBI single pulled Philadelphia within two, and Kyle Schwarber, who already owns the National League home run lead, ended it with a two-run walk-off shot for his 39th of the season. St. Louis sits five games back of the final NL wild-card spot, arguably needing a response even more than Baltimore does.
Probable Starters
Baltimore Orioles: RHP Chris Bassitt (4-4, 5.08 ERA)
St. Louis Cardinals: LHP Matthew Liberatore (5-11, 5.04 ERA)
Where to Watch/Listen
First pitch: 7:45 PM ET at Busch Stadium
TV: MASN
Radio: 98 Rock (97.9 FM) and WBAL NewsRadio (AM 1090 / FM 101.5)