Baltimore Orioles: 3 Keys for Weekend Series Victory Against Boston Red Sox

Entering this weekend's series, the Baltimore Orioles find themselves among baseball's best with regards to their record. On the other hand, the Boston Red Sox are several games behind the O's in the standings.

Baltimore has been playing fantastic baseball during the first part of the season, most recently taking two-of-three from the Yankees, but there is still room for improvement. 

Boston hasn't started the season the way most thought they would, as injuries have hit the Red Sox hard. Superstar Jacoby Ellsbury is one of many players Boston is currently missing and their pitching has been terrible.

The Sox have have been a streaky team so far this year, losing four-of-five to start the season, then winning three straight, then losing five straight, followed by a six-game win streak and most recently losing three-of-four.

Will this be the start of a winning streak or will the Sox' current slide continue? That depends on how well the Orioles play this series.

Starting Pitching

Manager Buck Showalter has made it simple when reporters ask him about the Orioles turnaround this season: O's starters are pitching better and going deeper into games. 

It's no secret: The better a team's starters pitch, the more games that team will win.

Effective starting pitching will be necessary for Baltimore to take this series from Boston. In years past, the Sox and Yankees have been knocking out Oriole starters in the fourth or fifth inning and then breaking away once the middle relief entered the game.

In this past series against the Yankees, Baltimore starters pitched deep into games and the Orioles were able to hold New York to only three runs in as many days.

Although a repeat of that performance will be unlikely, if not impossible, it isn't unreasonable to believe the Orioles starters can pitch into the seventh inning and leave with a lead against the Red Sox. 

The Orioles will start Wei-Yin Chen, Jason Hammel and Tommy Hunter in that order this weekend and the Orioles' continued success will rely heavily on their production.

Get to the Bullpen

The formula for beating the Red Sox thus far has been to get to a bullpen that is thin after the departure of longtime closer Jonathan Papelbon, as well as Daniel Bard's transition to the rotation and injuries to key arms like Andrew Bailey.

Boston's relief pitching has an ERA of 5.35 so far this season and have had some epic meltdowns already this summer.

The starters for Boston haven't been good so far either, but they roll out front-of-the-rotation arms Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz in games one and three, with Aaron Cook going in game two. 

The Orioles have to make sure this isn't the series where Buchholz (8.69 ERA) turns it around and must get to Lester early so they can get some at-bats against the middle relief where, like most teams, the Red Sox struggle.

This will be critical to any success the Orioles have this series. If the O's can keep up the pitching and pounce on a vulnerable Red Sox pitching staff, this could be another series victory for Baltimore. 

Stay Clean on Defense

After a horrific start to the season on defense, the Orioles have gone two straight series without committing an error. 

Even Mark Reynolds made a fantastic play against Oakland that saved Tommy Hunter from giving up an early lead against Oakland.

The Orioles learned early on in the season that if a team is given extra outs, more often than not they will take advantage.

Against a team like that the Red Sox, who, despite their injuries, is still putting up huge run numbers, routine outs mean more than ever.

It is hard enough to shut down the Red Sox, it will only be tougher if the Orioles kick the ball around.