Orioles manager Brandon Hyde strolled to the mound yesterday in the bottom of the 10^th inning, had a lengthy chat with Austin Voth, and gave the reliever an encouraging slap on the butt. A teammate smacked his chest.

The Orioles were battering Voth more than the Blue Jays.

Whit Merrifield followed Matt Chapman’s strikeout with a run-scoring single into center field to tie a game that would last through the 11^th. A game that might be the defining moment in the 2023 season.

The visitors erupted for five runs in their next turn and won 8-3 to complete the sweep, the first in a three-game series in Toronto since 2005.

So special because it’s a division rival with one of the most dangerous lineups in baseball.

TORONTO – The Orioles six-game AL East road trip is off to a great start. They have posted 6-2 and 6-5 wins in 10 innings at Toronto and they can sweep this series this afternoon at Rogers Centre.

In the 2018 season, the Orioles went 0-10 at Rogers Centre and that was not even against a winning Toronto team. While the Orioles went 47-115 that year, Toronto was 73-89.

This has just been a tough place for the Orioles to win over the years and today Baltimore (30-16) begins to play five games ahead of Toronto (25-21) in the standings.

The O’s win Saturday was another comeback win as Ryan O’Hearn’s three-run homer in the eighth tied the game at 5-5 and Félix Bautista fanned five over the last two innings to get the win. Baltimore starter Grayson Rodriguez allowed two runs and four hits over five innings. And O’s starters have allowed nine hits and three runs in 12 innings this series. The O’s offense has scored 12 runs, hitting five homers this weekend.

The Orioles did not pick up their 30^th win until Game 68 last year on June 19 when the club was 30-38.

If the Orioles want to win another series, they are going to need two wins the next two days in this four-game series against the Los Angeles Angels. They have split the first two, with Baltimore winning 7-3 last night.

The Orioles (27-15) remain 4.5 games behind Tampa Bay, which won again Tuesday night. Overall, the Orioles are 5-3 on this 10-game homestand; they are 14-7 in home games for the season and 9-2 in their last 11 games versus the Angels.

They have won five of the last seven games, 10 of 16, 18 of their past 26 and 23 of the last 33 games.

In two games this series, their offense has hit five homers, scoring 12 runs on 15 hits. But over the past nine games, the Orioles have scored 28 runs, or just 3.1 per game. Baltimore batters have hit five homers in two games and seven in the last four. The O’s have gone 10 straight games without a game of 10 hits or more.

But the O’s pitching has been solid over the past 11 games dating back to the start of their series at Atlanta, with a team ERA of 3.05 during that span. The O’s pitching staff has allowed 28 runs the past nine games (with a 2.70 team ERA), and 37 in the last 11. The rotation ERA is 3.56 in this 11-game stretch, with five quality starts. The Orioles are 10-1 this season when they get a quality start.

The Orioles got back on the horse with a 7-3 win over the Los Angeles Angels last night. Back-to-back losses didn't turn into the club's second three-game losing streak of 2023.

And while starter Dean Kremer provided a solid outing, allowing three runs over 5 2/3 on 95 pitches, the bullpen put forth another scoreless effort.

Right-hander Bryan Baker did allow an inherited runner to score, but Baker, Cionel Pérez and Yennier Cano did not allow a run over 3 1/3 innings. Baker has allowed just one earned run his last 19 2/3 innings. Perez retired all six batters he faced over the seventh and eighth innings on just 19 pitches. He has allowed one earned run his past 6 2/3. Cano pitched a 1-2-3 ninth on eight pitches and now has thrown 20 2/3 scoreless innings for the season.

Over the past five games, the O's 'pen has an ERA of 0.60. Over the last nine games, the 'pen ERA is 1.34. For the year the bullpen ERA is 2.94 to rank second in MLB.

Batting ninth, Ryan O'Hearn hit a solo homer in the second inning. And then Ryan Mountcastle pinch-hit for him and hit a two-run shot in the sixth that he blasted 433 feet.

The swing and the sound provided everything that Dean Kremer needed to know about Mickey Moniak’s at-bat leading off the top of the first inning.

Kremer stood motionless with his arm extended, eyes fixed on home plate, and waited for a new baseball. The one Moniak hit landed 408 feet away in the right-center field bleachers.

The inning must have felt like it was moving in slow motion. Kremer threw 31 pitches, his stay extended when Taylor Ward’s two-out ground ball at 105 mph slammed off Gunnar Henderson’s chest and rolled toward shortstop.

The overall damage to Kremer was minimal, with just the one run scoring. But the game within the game became how quickly he could dispose of the Angels and avoid a short outing after rookie Grayson Rodriguez lasted only 3 1/3 last night.

Kremer earned two wins. He came within a ground ball single of completing the sixth, lessening the strain on the bullpen, and the Orioles defeated the Angels 7-3 before an announced crowd of 13,244 at Camden Yards.

Last night, the Los Angeles Angels joined the Tampa Bay Rays as the second team this year to win a series-opening game against the Orioles. The Birds are now 12-2 in such games. The Angels 9-5 win was led by Shohei Ohtani, who gave up three home runs on the mound but hit a three-run homer at bat as part of a 4-for-5 game where he came up a double short of the cycle.

Adam Frazier and Anthony Santander hit two-run homers off Ohtani and Cedric Mullins added a solo shot. In two career starts against the Orioles, Ohtani has allowed nine runs in 12 innings and has given up six homers, including two each to Mullins and Santander. His five runs allowed last night tied his season high.

But the O’s starter, rookie right-hander Grayson Rodriguez, allowed nine hits and eight runs over 3 1/3 innings. That is the most runs allowed by a Baltimore starting pitcher this year. Coming into this series, O’s starters had a 1.74 ERA their previous eight games, allowing two earned runs or less seven times.

The Orioles bullpen allowed just a single run over 5 2/3 innings last night. The Baltimore bullpen has a 1.48 ERA (five ER/30.1 IP) over the last eight games.

Best bullpen ERAs in MLB in 2023

Anthony Santander gets his second consecutive start at first base tonight against the Angels at Camden Yards.

Santander hadn't played the position in the majors until last night, his experience confined to nine games in A-ball in 2016. He handled every chance flawlessly against the Angels.

Terrin Vavra stays in right field. Ryan O’Hearn bats ninth as the designated hitter.

Austin Hays is in left field and batting cleanup. Jorge Mateo is eighth.

Dean Kremer will try to stay on a roll after allowing one run over 12 combined innings against the Braves and Rays.

When the Orioles beat the Tampa Bay Rays Wednesday night 2-1 in a series-deciding game, righty reliever Yennier Cano was remarkable again. He got a drama-free save, getting three quick outs in the ninth on just eight pitches. He sure earned a save.

But sometimes an unofficial save can come before the ninth inning, and for me, Wednesday was one of those nights.

Lefty reliever Danny Coulombe, who had given up some runs in the Kansas City and Atlanta series, came on in the top of the eighth, just after Tampa Bay had cut a 2-0 deficit to 2-1. Coulombe got two huge, huge outs to keep the O’s ahead and set up Cano to do his thing in the ninth.

Coulombe, acquired by the club in late March from Minnesota for cash considerations, has done a real nice job this year for the Orioles. And he's doing that throwing his fastball, which averages only 91.3 mph, just 13 percent of the time.

He told me earlier this year how he is very confident in his ability to “spin” the ball, meaning that he can throw quality breaking pitches. And he sure can. Per Statcast, he uses his slider 54 percent of the time and his sweeper 17 percent. That's a very high percentage of breaking balls for Coulombe, who is 1-1 with a 2.84 ERA in 16 games over 12 2/3 innings. He has walked three and fanned 18 with a 1.03 WHIP to go with a .208 batting average against and .575 OPS.

The best news was, yes, the Orioles won a series against a Tampa Bay Rays team that brought a record of 28-7 (.800) into Baltimore on Monday night. The next best news was how they did it: with stunning pitching.

When the O’s began a series in Atlanta Friday, their rotation ERA was 5.65 for the season. But in the six games versus Atlanta and Tampa Bay, the rotation ERA was 2.41, and five times O’s starters allowed two earned runs or fewer.

Right-hander Dean Kremer pitched the first game of the Atlanta series and the last game of the Tampa Bay series and the O’s picked up huge wins in both games. His ERA was 6.67 when he took the mound at Truist Park. It is now 4.97 after he threw six scoreless innings, allowing just four singles in the 2-1 win over the Rays last night.

Just about at the time that some were speculating that his hold on a rotation spot could be shaky, he stepped up with two outstanding performances. He allowed a run in the first inning at Atlanta. Then he put up five scoreless innings after that. And tacked on six more last night.

“Two of the better offensive teams, and right at the right time," manager Brandon Hyde said after last night’s win. "We talked about how well he pitched in Atlanta, and then tonight, even better. He's figuring it out a little bit and learning how to pitch. Got a double play ball when he needed it, used the sinker effectively, he can step on a four-seamer from 96-97 and he does that well. He's got other pitches, as well. That's a tough lineup to navigate through and he did an outstanding job.”

Dean Kremer didn’t allow a hit tonight until one out in the fourth inning. Nine batters in a row retired since his back-to-back walks in the first. Then came another single and the possibility of his start eroding.

Isaac Paredes slapped a sinker on the ground. Good for Kremer. The ball was aimed at shortstop Jorge Mateo. Even better.

Mateo began the Orioles’ 42^nd double play of the season, most in the majors, and their fifth in the past two nights.

Kremer kept grinding away and waiting for run support that finally came after he left the game.

The Orioles loaded the bases against Yonny Chirinos with no outs in the bottom of the sixth inning and scored twice, Danny Coulombe stranded an inherited runner with two strikeouts in the eighth, and Yennier Cano handled closing duties in a tense 2-1 victory over the Rays before an announced crowd of 14,395 at Camden Yards.

The Orioles (23-13) tonight have a chance for another series victory – it would be their eighth series win in the last nine tries – and a chance to become just the third team in 2023 to take a series from the Tampa Bay Rays (29-8).

The Rays are 9-2 in 11 series for the season, going 1-2 to lose series against both Toronto and Houston. They have won their past three series against the Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh and the New York Yankees. Tampa Bay is 10-5 on the road and 8-4 versus AL East teams.

The Rays record is now 23-2 in games where they score first after they took a 1-0 lead in the first inning last night but lost 4-2 at Oriole Park.

The Rays began the year 13-0 and are 16-8 since then and they are now 12-6 versus teams with a better than .500 record.

The Orioles can almost match the Rays with an 8-3 series record and they are 3-3 in rubber match games, losing their most recent one at Atlanta on Sunday.  The Orioles have series losses against the Red Sox, Yankees and Braves.

The Orioles are trying tonight for their eighth series win in the last nine.

Ryan O’Hearn is batting ninth tonight as the designated hitter against the Rays. Adam Frazier is batting fifth again. Gunnar Henderson is the third baseman.

Dean Kremer held the Braves to one run in six innings in his last start to lower his ERA from 6.67 to 5.80. He’s 0-1 with a 4.00 ERA in four career starts against the Rays.

Randy Arozarena is 3-for-7 with two home runs against Kremer.

Ryan Mountcastle posted his 10^th multi-hit game of the season last night to tie him with Austin Hays and Anthony Santander for the team lead.

For the Orioles, I guess we could say they didn’t gain as many wins as they hoped, but they did gain respect. Respect in that they may in fact be a contending team that is ready to play with the big boys in big league baseball.

We can’t say that with certainty after just those three games in Atlanta but in five series this year versus clubs with current winning records they are 2-3 and a dropped fly ball from being 3-2. They are 7-8 in those games against Boston, New York, Texas and Atlanta.

But maybe the hard-fought series between the teams over the weekend at Truist Park does kind of validate the Orioles' 15-4 mark this year against their other opponents in Oakland, Chicago, Washington, Detroit and Kansas City. They took care of business big time against the second division clubs, perhaps hammering home the point that they are no longer one of them.

The Orioles lost two of three games in Atlanta, but it was probably as positive a weekend as it could be for a club going 1-2. The last two days they went 2-for-23 with runners in scoring position, which led to the 5-4 and 3-2 losses. They didn’t need an avalanche of clutch hits to pull out one or more of those games – just a couple would do – but they didn’t come.

In the last week such hits were the difference for the Orioles in scoring big or not. In producing games with 11 and 13 runs in Kansas City and nine in Atlanta on Friday, they were a combined 18-for-45 (.400) with RISP. But in scoring zero, four and two runs the other three games in those series they were a combined 2-for-25 (.080) with RISP.

Friday was, to say the least, an impressive night for the Orioles.

They hit well, pitched well and defended well against an Atlanta team that won the World Series in 2021, won 101 games in 2022 and has won five straight National League East titles.

Atlanta sent out pitcher Max Fried and his 0.45 ERA, and the Orioles had him and the Braves down 9-1 in the seventh. They have scored 34 runs the last four games and that includes one game where they were shutout. They are 6-2 on this road trip, and 13-6 in road games after Friday's resounding 9-4 win.

What a way to start a 22-game stretch against clubs with winning records. And what a way to start a nine-game stretch versus first place teams in Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh.

Anthony Santander hitting two homers, including a grand slam, and Cedric Mullins hitting a big left-on-left homer were huge moments. But for me, seeing right-hander Dean Kremer pitch so well was the biggest development.

The Orioles are two-thirds through their road trip and keep winning more than they lose, which seems like a solid plan the rest of the way.

Is it always pretty? Not even close to that, but what matters is the final score and a 21-10 record.

They didn’t win their 21^st game last season until May 30 in Boston. They had 29 losses and nobody was predicting playoffs.

If there really is a soft spot in a major league schedule, the Orioles zipped past it. They play the first-place Braves, with the second-best record in baseball, in a three-game series before returning home and facing the first-place Rays, who possess the best record at 26-6 and have a plus-114 run differential.

The Orioles won two of three games at Truist Park in 2018. The opener lasted 15 innings and the Orioles prevailed 10-7 after they scored six runs in the top of the ninth and Zack Britton was charged with four in the bottom half to send the game to extras. Manny Machado homered in the 15^th.

DETROIT – Austin Hays wasn’t fooling around with a perfect game bid. Not today. Nip it in the bud.

Hays lined a double down the left field line on the first pitch from Tigers starter Eduardo Rodriguez, who didn’t allow an Orioles baserunner for 6 2/3 innings Sunday in Baltimore. Hays was stranded but also successful in his return from a bruised right finger.

James McCann homered off Rodriguez in the second, another shot at his former team. Rodriguez obviously was more vulnerable this afternoon in Game 1 of a doubleheader.

He just wasn’t beatable, and the Orioles couldn’t manufacture a 10^th comeback win.

Rodriguez was removed after 5 2/3 innings and only one run allowed. Meanwhile, Dean Kremer surrendered a career-high 11 hits through the fifth, and the Orioles lost to the Tigers 7-4 at Comerica Park.

Do the Red Sox count as a soft portion of the schedule?

They were a last-place team but with a record above .500 upon arriving in Baltimore. They began the season by winning a series against the Orioles. They led the majors with nine comeback victories.

The Orioles claimed their eighth tonight.  

Austin Hays delivered a tie-breaking single in the fifth inning and threw out a runner at third base in the sixth, and four relievers protected a slim lead in the Orioles' 5-4 victory before an announced crowd of 11,811.

The Orioles have won seven games in a row and 11 of 13, and they improved to 15-7.

For the first time since April 9, the Orioles will face an American League East team tonight. They open a three-game home series versus the Boston Red Sox.

The O’s (14-7) opened the 2023 season at Fenway Park, winning 10-9 before losses by 9-8 and 9-5 scores. They allowed Boston at least nine runs in three consecutive games.

Contrast that with the pitching lately, where the Orioles have allowed just seven runs during a six-game win streak. O’s pitchers have allowed just three runs over their past 54 innings and three runs the last five games, allowing, in order, 0, 0, 1, 1 and 1 against Washington and Detroit.

But Boston (12-11) just took two of three at Milwaukee, and the Red Sox, since beginning this season at 5-8, are 7-3 and have won three of their past four. They are 2-5 versus AL East clubs, going 2-1 against Baltimore but 0-4 against Tampa Bay.

The current AL East standings

As the rotation turns for the Orioles, it took a turn for the better beginning with the second inning Sunday at Chicago. Grayson Rodriguez allowed a pair of homers in the first and the Orioles were down 4-0 to the White Sox.

But they would rally to win that game and two teams have not scored off Baltimore starters, or any Baltimore pitcher, since. Starting with the second inning Sunday, the Orioles staff has thrown 26 consecutive scoreless innings. The starters since that point have thrown 16 2/3 consecutive scoreless.

The back-to-back shutouts at Nats Park reduced their team ERA to 4.68, which is ninth now in the American League and still not as good the league average of 4.32. But trending up.

The Orioles doubled their total of quality starts from two to four in the series in Washington. They are 4-0 in those games. But they rank 22^nd in the majors with four QS. Boston, Detroit and St. Louis are at the bottom of the bigs with just two. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Pittsburgh have 11 and Cleveland is next with 10.

But the O’s hope their young starters are turning a corner and starting to lock in as they did late last year. Right now the rotation features Rodriguez, 23, Kyle Bradish, 26, Dean Kremer, 27, and Tyler Wells, 28.

The recovery made by rookie starter Grayson Rodriguez after the first inning of Sunday’s game in Chicago did more than keep him on the mound through the fifth and enable the Orioles to stage a comeback win and claim the series.

Rodriguez began a scoreless streak that cut through D.C. and pulled up to Camden Yards, where the Orioles are hosting the Tigers over the weekend.

The Orioles haven’t allowed a run in 26 consecutive innings. Not since the White Sox’s Jake Burger drove a 96.9 mph fastball over the right field fence Sunday afternoon with two outs in the bottom of the first.

Rain delayed the start for two hours and 22 minutes. Orioles pitching has created drought conditions on opposing batters.

The bullpen covered the last four innings at Guaranteed Rate Field, beginning with Mike Baumann, who blanked the White Sox in the sixth and seventh. Austin Voth retired the side in order in the eighth after surrendering a home run in each of his first five appearances. Félix Bautista stranded a runner in the ninth in a non-save situation.