First pitch: Saturday, 4:05 p.m. ET
Line: Baltimore +120, Boston -130, Total: 9.5

Both the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox look to grab an early season division lead as they face each other on Saturday afternoon.

After a nice start to the 2015 season where the Orioles won their first two games, they bottomed out with losses in four of their next five contests; giving up double-digit runs twice during that span. They were able to rebound against the struggling Yankees, though, winning each of the final two games against them in a three-game set and had to do it from behind the 7-5 victory on Wednesday. Baltimore put a hurting on New York’s bullpen in the sixth inning, scoring five runs in quick succession and totaled a whopping 15 hits in all over the course of the game. Just one of those knocks came off the bat of OF Adam Jones (.406) who has a hit in each of the last six outings heading into this series while tallying a total of four homers and 11 RBIs. Boston has had a solid start to the new campaign, winning each of its first three series and put up 22 runs in the recent meetings with the Nationals. It was their first home series of the year and while they did get the series win, they were unable to complete the sweep on Wednesday as they were blown out by a score of 10-5. The Red Sox pitchers gave up 12 hits in the loss and were torched when men were in scoring position as Washington’s batters were 5-for-11 with RISP. OF Hanley Ramirez (.278) has been the power for his new ballclub, knocking four bombs to go with nine RBIs heading into this series. The start in this one will go to RHP Chris Tillman (1-1, 7.71 ERA) for the visiting team as RHP Clay Buchholz (1-1, 7.84 ERA) toes the rubber for Boston. It has been a nice run for the Orioles in this matchup since the start of 2013 as they hold a 22-16 record (.579) overall and are an impressive 12-7 (.632) when at Fenway Park. Last year they were tremendous on the road against them, going 7-3 and outscoring the Red Sox 18-7 in the last three-game set here; a sweep by Baltimore.

Tillman has been fantastic for the Orioles over the past two seasons, going 29-13 with an ERA better than 3.75 each year. He did see his strikeouts drop to closer to his career average when he mowed down 6.5 batters per nine innings last year, but had 40.6% of balls hits go on the ground as he left 76.7% of runners on base. He started this year off right with a win after 6.2 strong innings of one-run, four-hit baseball in which he struck out four (3 walks). He couldn’t duplicate that against Toronto in his next outing, though, making it through just 2.2 innings while allowing seven runs on seven hits (2 HRs). He has faced Boston more than any other team in the league and over 16 starts against them he is 7-3 with a 2.69 ERA (1.34 WHIP) and has given up seven homers in 90.1 IP. With 35 at-bats in this matchup, 2B Dustin Pedroia has the most experience against the righty and is 10-for-35 (.286) with two doubles and five RBIs in that time. Another longtime Red Sox, DH David Ortiz, has really struggled against Tillman with a putrid three hits (1 HR, 2 RBI) and six strikeouts over 27 at-bats (.111). Baltimore’s bullpen has not looked too great heading into Friday with a 2-1 record behind a 5.23 ERA (1.29 ERA) and 3-of-4 games saved. Zach Britton (1.69 ERA, 3 saves) continues to do a great job as the team’s closer and owns an 8:1 K/BB ratio over 5.1 innings on the bump this year.

As usual, Buchholz has been inconsistent over just two starts this year and after putting up a brilliant performance (7 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 9 K) in the season opener, he allowed 10 runs (9 ER) on nine hits in just 3.1 innings against the Yankees on Sunday. He has always been two different pitchers when on the mound and part of it could be that he has never had a season with 30+ starts. Last year, he was able to go 28 times, but posted a bloated 5.34 ERA (1.39 WHIP) and left a mere 62.1% of runners on base. He’s now pitched in 17 games (16 starts) against this Baltimore group and is 9-4 with a 3.86 ERA (1.33 WHIP) as he’s allowed 10 long balls in 100.1 IP. Some of the Orioles batters have seen Buchholz plenty in their careers and 1B Chris Davis (6-for-19, 1 2B, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 6 K) has had a lot of success while OF Adam Jones (6-for-29, 3 2B, 2 HR, 11 RBI) has made his hits count. OFs Steve Pearce, Travis Snider and Delmon Young have not had any type of solid at-bats in the matchup, combining to go 2-for-29 (.069) with 13 strikeouts. The relievers for Boston have collectively gone 2-0 with a 2.97 ERA (1.17 WHIP) and are 1-for-2 in save chances before the start of this series. Koji Uehara (0.00 ERA, 1 save) had a perfect inning in his first save on Tuesday with two strikeouts.