The Orioles will host the Padres in Baltimore for an upcoming series, with Shane Baz listed as a probable starter for the home club and Griffin Canning expected to take the ball for San Diego in the opener.
San Diego arrives with momentum of a different sort: the Padres walked off the Reds on a Fernando Tatis Jr. homer before landing in Baltimore, but the club’s recent results paint a more troubling picture than a single highlight suggests.
The hard number is simple and stark. After a 31-20 start, the Padres have gone 4-12 over their last 16 games, a slump that included two sweeps at the hands of the Phillies and series losses to the Mets and Nationals. That slide has left the team searching for answers as it travels into an American League East market where the Orioles are trying to climb back to.500.
Baz brings a mixed ledger into Camden Yards. He is 3-6 with a 4.09 ERA and 66 strikeouts on the season, and his four-game streak of quality starts was snapped in Toronto last weekend when he allowed four unearned runs in a 6-4 loss. Still, his last five starts offer a counterpoint: a 2.20 ERA, a.218 batting average against and 28 strikeouts in 32.2 innings. Baz has faced the Padres twice in his career and last year threw seven shutout innings in San Diego.
Canning’s line tells a different story. The right-hander is 0-4 with a 6.34 ERA and 33 strikeouts this season and yielded 13 earned runs in his first 11 innings. There are signs of stabilization—he has a 4.15 ERA over his last four outings and in his most recent start held the Mets to one earned run in five innings—but Camden Yards has been unforgiving: in three career starts there Canning has a 7.20 ERA with opponents hitting.323 and compiling a 1.035 OPS.
Manny Machado’s return to Baltimore provides a storyline with particular texture. Machado is a former Oriole and one of the few Padres regulars whose history in the city is more than anecdote: against Baltimore he owns a.278 average and.871 OPS with four home runs in 13 games. That contrasts sharply with his overall 2024 numbers, a troubling.172/.253/.345 slash line with a.597 OPS, though he does have 11 homers and 34 RBIs on the season. In 2024 Machado went 3-for-5 with a three-run homer in a 9-4 Padres win at Camden Yards, a recent reminder that his performance in Baltimore has been better than his season-long output.
Context tightens the stakes. Since MLB changed its schedule format in 2023 the Orioles have gone 5-4 against the Padres, and Baltimore has won two of three matchups at Camden Yards since that change—though the home team dropped two of three games there against San Diego overall. The Orioles swept the Padres at Petco Park at the beginning of last September, an example of how these clubs have traded momentum in a short window of meetings.
The friction is straightforward: San Diego’s early-season surge has been undercut by a brutal recent stretch, and the pitching matchup highlights both the Padres’ need for steadiness and Baltimore’s mixed results against these arms. Baz’s recent run suggests the Orioles will need to time him up in the few innings he’s not dominant; Canning’s Camden Yards history and early-season struggles place a premium on his ability to replicate his last outing against the Mets.
What to watch when the first pitch drops: whether Baz’s recent form continues to blunt San Diego’s offensive problems, and whether Canning can neutralize a Baltimore lineup that is trying to push back to even. The single question that will determine how this series is remembered is clear — can the Padres use Machado’s better track record against the Orioles and a bounce-back outing from Canning to halt a 4-12 skid, or will Baltimore’s push toward.500 capitalize on San Diego’s sudden inconsistency?
