The Blue Jays are having a hell of a time scoring runs. Like, it at times appears as though they’re actively trying not to score runs. Obviously that isn’t actually the case but this less-than-stellar lineup has hit a pretty horrendous funk. They got completely mowed down over the span of 13 innings by Sonny Gray and the Yankees ‘pen yesterday and they only mustered a couple runs off of CC Sabathia the day before.

Thank fuck the Baltimore Orioles are heading to town. If anyone is going to help the Jays remember how to tee up on a ball, it’s theTrash Birds and their 5.17 runs against per game. That’s really, really bad! Even worse than Toronto’s 5.03 runs against per game!

David Hess will make the fifth start of his career in the series opener on Thursday. His first two outings weren’t good, but he’s been excellent over the course of his most recent two starts. In his last time out he held the Rays to one run on four hits over six innings. Jaime Garcia will start for the Jays. It looked like the he had turned a corner in his first outing off of the disabled list in Philly, but Garcia got absolutely bombed by the Tigers. He allowed four runs on seven hits and couldn’t get out of the second inning.

Andrew Cashner has been pretty bad this year. He’s sporting a 5.02 ERA for the season despite the fact he’s actually striking guys out. Last year, Cashner inexplicably put together a 3.40 ERA but it was incredibly misleading as he was striking out 4.6 guys per nine while walking 3.5 guys per nine. The Jays had a hell of a time with Cashner back in early April as he held them to four hits over seven innings. Thankfully Aaron Sanchez damn near threw a no-hitter that game. J.A. Happ will go for the Jays against Cashner. He’s been Toronto’s only consistently good starter this year and was solid in his only outing against the O’s back in April.

The Jays have seen a lot of Kevin Gausman in the past. Holy hell, last year he started against the Jays six times and held them to two or fewer runs in all of them. Gausman started against the Jays once back in April going six innings while allowing just three runs. Aaron Sanchez will start for the Jays. He’s coming off a very good outing in Detroit in which he allowed one run on two hits over six innings. As you’ll surely remember, Sanchez’s best start of the year came against the Trash Birds when he carried a no-hitter into the eighth.

The finale will be between Alex Cobb and Marco Estrada, though Estrada isn’t listed on the image for whatever reason. Cobb was one of Baltimore’s big free agent splashes this winter. He’s been, uh, bad. Estrada hasn’t been much better, unfortunately. That said, Estrada did have a very solid start against the Yankees in his last time out.