Orioles vs. Red Sox

The Orioles will end a brutal 20-game stretch in 20 days with three games against the Boston Red Sox, a suddenly surging club that has won eight of of their last 10 games after a 1-8 stretch. Boston has won two straight, including a 5-1 win in Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon, but the Red Sox are still 6 1/2 games behind the division-leading Orioles.

The O’s (27-15)  had a five-game win streak snapped on Sunday, losing on the road, 9-3, to the Nationals. Still, Baltimore owns the best record in the AL and swept the Red Sox in a three-game series May 4-6 at Fenway Park.

Before we get into pregame notes and lineups later this afternoon, I wanted to pass along some attendance figures from this weekend’s series in DC. Per an MLB press release,

Two of the four largest attendance days in Nationals Park history were tallied this weekend for the Washington Nationals’ series against the Baltimore Orioles.  The Nationals drew 42,331 on Saturday, marking the second-largest single attendance in Nationals Park history.  On Sunday, the game drew 41,918, the fourth-best attendance in the ballpark’s history.

Overall, the Orioles-Nationals series attracted 120,929 fans, the largest crowd in the rivalry’s seven-year history (previous: 114,929 in 2008).

That’s pretty impressive, and –as I mentioned on 105.7 this morning — it was good to see a mix of Orioles and Nationals fans really come out and support their respective clubs.