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SAN DIEGO — Padres manager Andy Green says make nothing of the statistic. The only thing that’s important is that the Padres will be going for a series win Sunday in the rubber match of a three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Petco Park.

But here’s the stat. The Padres lost Friday night’s series opener to the Pirates — marking the 18th time in the last 19 series that the Padres have lost the opening game in the series.

Saturday night they held onto a 4-3 win to improve to 14-5 in the second game of their last 19 series. Going into Sunday Authentic Leighton Vander Esch Jersey , they are 11-7 in the third game.

“I don’t put much into that first game of a series statistic,” Green said Saturday. “I think it’s just one of those things that you don’t make too big a deal out of. The goal is to win the series and we have Tyson (Ross) on the mound for the rubber game.”

The right-handed Ross (5-5, 3.32 earned run average) will be opposing Pittsburgh right-hander Jameson Taillon (5-6, 3.96 ERA) in Sunday afternoon’s rubber match.

The 32-year-old Ross has been the Padres most reliable pitcher this season. The Padres are 11-5 when he starts (including a 7-2 record over his last nine starts), although they have failed to score a run for him the last three times he has started.

Ross has not allowed more than three runs in his last nine starts and he has gone five or more innings in his last 11 starts. Over his last two outings, Ross has allowed three runs on nine hits and six walks in 13 innings. And his ERA over those past nine starts is 3.08.

Ross has already made one successful start against the Pirates this season. On May 18 in Pittsburgh, Ross held Pittsburgh to two runs on five hits and four walks with two strikeouts over six innings to get credit for the win in a 3-2 Padres victory.

Sunday will be Ross’ seventh career appearance against the Pirates. In six previous starts, Ross has a 2-2 record and a 3.24 ERA. Another thing Ross has going for him Sunday is Petco Park. He has a career 2.91 ERA in the Padres’ downtown home in 53 games (44 starts).

Taillon Authentic Royce Freeman Jersey , 26, will be facing the Padres for the first time this season although he will be making his third career start against the Padres. He has a 1-0 record with a 1.26 ERA over 14 1/3 innings in his first two outings against the Padres. He shut out the Padres on three hits and two walks over eight innings in 2016.

Like Ross, Taillon will also be making his 17th start of the season. After starting the season 2-0 with a 0.89 ERA in his first three starts, Taillon has gone 3-6 with a 4.87 ERA in his last 13 starts. But he has won each of his past three road starts, giving up four runs in 21 innings.

The biggest plus for Taillon Sunday could be the sunlight. He is 9-2 with a 2.87 ERA in 17 career day games and 4-0 with a 1.93 ERA in five daylight starts on the road.

Lance Lynn gets the start Friday night when the Minnesota Twins continue a four-game series with the Baltimore Orioles at Target Field.

Lynn’s 2018 season has not gone anywhere near the way he may have envisioned when he hit the free-agent market for the first time last fall, ending a six-year run with the Cardinals.

Instead of landing a lucrative, multi-year deal he went unsigned until late in spring training, when he agreed to a one-year Authentic J'Mon Moore Jersey , $12 million contract with the Minnesota Twins — approximately $5.4 million less than he would have earned under the Cardinals’ one-year qualifying offer he turned down last November.

After an abbreviated spring camp, Lynn got off to an abysmal start. He went 0-3 in his first five outings, posting an 8.37 ERA in those contests but finally got into a groove when the calendar flipped to May. He went 5-2 with a 2.88 ERA over his next nine turns.

Lynn, who is 5-7 with a 5.49 ERA for the season, continues his hit-or-miss season Friday after losing his last two starts. He is fresh off his worst outing of the season when he allowed seven runs on five hits and three walks, failing to get out of the second inning in an 11-10 loss at Wrigley Field on Sunday.

Cubs pitcher Jon Lester homered off Lynn during a disastrous second inning that also included Lynn failing to cover first on a routine grounder, which kept the inning going long enough for the Cubs to take a big lead.

“We gave them an extra out,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said of Lynn’s gaffe. “I think that was the biggest thing that stuck out to me. An offense like that Authentic DJ Chark Jersey , outs when you don’t get them, that was problematic to me. The arithmetic says that was an extra five runs because of that particular play.”

Lynn is 1-1 with a 7.30 ERA in three games (two starts) versus Baltimore.

The Twins snapped a six-game losing streak in the series opener Thursday night and, in turn, extended the misery for the Orioles, who have lost three in a row and 10 of their last 11.

They’ll turn to Dylan Bundy (6-7, 3.75 ERA) to snap the skid. Baltimore plans to activate the right-hander from the disabled list Friday and get him back on the mound for the first time since suffering a sprained left ankle June 23.

He went 3-7 with a 4.46 ERA through his first 12 starts of the season but got hot in June, posting a 1.98 ERA while going 3-0 in four starts before suffering the injury while running the bases after collecting his first big league hit.

His return comes as the Orioles need to decide a course of action ahead of the trade deadline. At 24-62, Baltimore owns the worst record in baseball and will almost certainly be a seller as the deadline approaches.

The 25-year-old Dylan is in his third full big league season and still has three more years of team control Authentic Mike Gesicki Jersey , making him an intriguing candidate for a motivated buyer.

The Twins’ Logan Morrison has two home runs in 15 at-bats versus Bundy, who is 0-2 with a 3.60 ERA in four career games (three starts) versus Minnesota. Bundy faced the Twins in his first start of this season, giving up five hits over seven shutout innings in Baltimore’s 3-2 victory on March 29.