Baltimore and New York:
Baltimore needs two out of three minimum in this series if they have any designs of making a Wild Card run.
Orioles 3 1/2 games back of the NY Yankees, the wild card leaders, and seven games back of division leading Boston,
Orioles are 1 1/2 games back of the second wild card team Minnesota, and currently tied with LA Angels who are third.
I don't think LA Angels have nearly enough pitching to be in contention in 3 weeks, there's 26 games left there is some wiggle room, but you can't lose a series like this.

Baltimore starts their most dependable pitcher on a pitching staff that is shaky at best.
Yankees start bottom of the rotation guy, Jordan Montgomery.

Baltimore jumps Montgomery early.
Beckham hits a homer to lead off the game, Chris Davis hits a two run jack in the second, Balty is ambushing Montgomery but Monty settles down.
Yanks get 3 in the fourth inning, DiDi hits a 2 run homer that inning.
Yanks get 2 in the fifth inning, Castro parked a two run homer there knocking out Bundy
Yanks get 2 in the sixth, the Orioles gypsy pitcher Castro walked the building, Yanks get 2 on 1 hit and three walks.

It's bottom of seventh, looks like O's are sunk this game down 7-3.
Balty can't afford to lose these games, their best and most dependable starting pitcher is staked to an early 3-0 lead, you must protect that lead. Especially at home.

The loss (unless they mount a big comeback) doesn't sink the O's for the remainder of the season, but it makes it that much more difficult.

I thought if 2 of the other 4 pitchers stepped up with Bundy the last 26 games the Birds would snatch that last Wild Card. Not so sure now.
Game 2 tomorrow night. Sabathia against Hellickson.
If I'm Machado and Beckham and Adam Jones, I'm bunting all game.

The other big series is
Arizona at LA Dodgers.

Series is going to settle nothing, it's a litmus test really.
Dodgers lead over Arizona is too big to catch in 26 games, and the Diamond Backs are guaranteed either a Wild Card game, with a 6.5 game lead in the WC race, even if they went 10 and 16 over the last 26 games they still get in, for the Snakes to miss the the playoffs all together they'd have to go 5 and 21 or worse, and they have too much pitching for that to happen.

Arizona and the Dodgers have the two best pitching staffs in the National League.

Sortable Pitching
RK TEAM GP W L ERA SV CG SHO IP QS ER R BB SO BAA
1 LA Dodgers 136 92 44 3.25 44 2 14 1215.2 57 439 466 364 1296 .224
2 Arizona 137 79 58 3.61 37 2 8 1220.0 70 490 551 439 1255 .241

And the Diamondbacks are fourth ranked in the National League batting, the Dodgers are fifth ranked.

Tonight's game features two of the better lefties in the league Hill and Ray.
Arizona is actually a better hitting lefty team than LA is.

Should be good baseball there.