The Angels, meanwhile, are what they've been all year: last place, gutted by injuries up and down the roster, and playing out the string on an 11th straight season without October baseball in Anaheim. Yusei Kikuchi, Anthony Rendon, Robert Stephenson and Ben Joyce are all done for the foreseeable future, and closer options are running thin with Sam Bachman now day-to-day with arm fatigue.
Even so, the Angels showed a pulse in the finale against Milwaukee, riding a shutout behind Wade Meckler's two-run homer to snap a four-game skid. It's a small thing for a team going nowhere, but it's the kind of result that at least keeps the room from feeling completely dead heading into a road trip against a team still fighting for something.
That contrast is the whole story here. Baltimore needs to bank wins against exactly this kind of opponent if it wants to stay within shouting distance of the final AL wild card berth. Losing series to a 43-69 team is how contenders talk themselves out of October, and the Orioles' offense going cold at the wrong time is the thing that should worry that clubhouse most.
For the Angels, there's nothing left to play for but pride and evaluation time for a front office that needs a plan for next year. For the Orioles, every one of these getaway-day matinees matters more than the calendar suggests. That gap in stakes says plenty about how this one should go, even before the lineups are set.