No one in the Orioles rotation has been willing to assist with the difficult task of making room for a sixth starter.

No one has stumbled to the point where an excuse for removal is created. So it’s left to the decision-makers in the organization to figure it out.

Dean Kremer followed his six scoreless innings in Cincinnati by not allowing an earned run today heading into the sixth, with a couple of errors doing more damage than the Diamondbacks.

Three unearned runs already were mountainous against Arizona ace Zac Gallen, and Jake McCarthy’s two-run shot to the flag court in right field was a dagger in the Orioles’ 9-2 loss before an announced Mother’s Day crowd of 31,448 at Camden Yards.

Kremer tied his career high with 10 strikeouts, but he also was charged with a third earned run when Cionel Pérez walked a batter and allowed an infield hit to Corbin Carroll and a two-run single to Ketel Marte.

As the Orioles have now opened a 1.5-game lead atop the American League East and have started the season’s longest homestand with two wins, today they have a chance for another series sweep.

Their third series sweep of the year came last weekend at Cincinnati and now they can add their fourth today. April 9-11 they won three straight at Boston to sweep the Red Sox by a 23-10 score. April 15-17 at home they swept Minnesota by a combined 22-9 score. Last weekend their starting pitchers threw a combined 19 1/3 scoreless innings at Great American Ball Park as they swept the Reds by a 16-2 score.

Friday they beat Arizona by 4-2 and yesterday they won 5-4 in 11 innings. Two of their past three wins have come via extra innings.

The Orioles hit two homers in Saturday’s win and lead the majors with 59 with the Dodgers next with 56. Gunnar Henderson hit his 12^th homer of the year on Saturday and he is tied for the major league lead with Atlanta’s Marcell Ozuna and Houston’s Kyle Tucker.

Henderson hit 28 homers last year in 622 plate appearances or one every 22.2 PAs. This year that ratio is one every 14.3 with 12 in 172 plate appearances.

The Orioles are going for the sweep today against the Diamondbacks and trying to improve on a 26-12 record that matches the 1969 and 1970 teams for the best 38-game start in franchise history.

Cedric Mullins is on the bench again today. He struck out yesterday as a pinch-hitter and is 5-for-53 since his two-hit day in Kansas City on April 21.

Colton Cowser gets another start in center field. Ryan O’Hearn is in left after Heston Kjerstad started there yesterday.

Ramón Urías is the third baseman.

Jordan Westburg is playing second base after yesterday’s walk-off single in the 11^th inning. Westburg has doubled in three consecutive games, and his four-hit game yesterday was the first of his career and the first this season by an Orioles player.

WASHINGTON - Dean Kremer was following the rotation’s lead of hanging up zeros, being extra stingy Sunday afternoon with only one hit allowed, and the bats broke out to remove any potential drama. A sweep in Cincinnati was a certainty, with only the final score pending.

Anthony Santander provided the game’s first run with his RBI single in the first inning, but he had one more damaging swing in him. It didn’t influence the outcome, but he needed it.

Facing right-hander Emilio Pagán in the ninth, Santander laid into a four-seam fastball and drove it 402 feet to right-center field for his third career grand slam.

Santander had five hits since April 21 before going 3-for-4 to raise his average from .200 to .218 and his OPS from .668 to .722. He was slashing .179/.225/.381 against right-handers before last night, increasing the important of the blow against Pagán.

The only other five-RBI game in Santander’s career was May 5, 2023, against the Braves and he also hit a grand slam.

CINCINNATI - Before Sunday’s game, first-year Orioles pitching Drew French met with reporters, who of course asked about the recent great run of O’s pitching.

Then they went out and recorded another scoreless start and held the Cincinnati Reds to three hits and one run in Sunday’s 11-1 win to complete a three-game sweep.

In the series in Cincinnati, O’s starters pitched 19 1/3 scoreless allowing just six hits. In the series, O’s pitchers gave up two runs and 11 hits with five walks to 26 strikeouts.

The team ERA is down to 3.31. That ranks fifth-best both in the American League and in MLB.

What has been the key to this amazing run, French was asked?

CINCINNATI – Maybe the O’s starters are just trying to match or better the previous pitcher. But whatever the reason, this team, as catcher James McCann observed last night, has used great game plans and execution to go on a tremendous pitching roll.

Today it led them to a three-game sweep of the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park.

The O’s had not swept the Reds since the 2014 season, and never on the road before today’s 11-1 win behind Dean Kremer’s strong start, Jordan Westburg’s two-run homer, two RBIs from Adley Rutschman and Anthony Santander's grand slam in the ninth to cap it off. 

Friday night here, Cole Irvin threw 6 1/3 scoreless innings. Lefty John Means went seven without allowing a run last night.

Today Kremer pitched six scoreless while allowing just one hit, a clean single to left by Christian Encarnacion-Strand in the fifth. He walked one and fanned six, throwing 93 pitches.

The Orioles have gotten plenty of attention for their homer prowess. They began play last night leading the majors in homers and in homers per game. They had hit at least one homer in 21 of their 28 games and went 15-6 in those.

But in this series with the New York Yankees, the Baltimore pitching has led the way to wins by 2-0 and 4-2.

The O’s staff saw a pair of ninth-inning leads get away over the weekend versus Oakland. But the last two nights, lefty Danny Coulombe picked up his third career save and last night right-hander Jacob Webb fanned three in getting the last four outs to record his fifth career save.

Webb’s five career saves have come for three different clubs, with three for Atlanta and one each for the Angels and Orioles. His last before last night was June 15, 2023 for the Angels at Texas.

Against the Yankees Webb got seven whiffs on nine swings. That was big-time swing and miss stuff in that outing and now, over 13 1/3 innings he has a 2.03 ERA, 0.90 WHIP and .191 batting average against.

One of the biggest potential influencers in tonight’s game was doing important work on the field before batting practice. Craig Kimbrel stretched while holding a weighted ball, played catch and walked to the bullpen for a lengthy session. The Orioles needed proof that the tightness was gone in his upper back and he could be a consideration in a save situation.

On Wednesday, as it turned out.

Manager Brandon Hyde was giving Kimbrel another game to recover after the veteran closer was removed Sunday in the ninth inning, his third appearance in five days. But don’t tell the Yankees your plans. Let them think he’s ready.

Let him appear to demonstrate that he could take the ball in the ninth and see how the game played out.

Don’t worry about putting the cart before the horse. Figure it out before knowing whether a lead would require protecting.

With Monday’s 2-0 win over the New York Yankees, the Orioles improved to 18-10, achieved a first-place tie atop the division and improved to 7-3 in series-opening games.

Win the first one and the chances to win the series go up, said Captain Obvious. And the Orioles are 6-3 in series play in 2024.

With one win the next three days they would at least split this four-game series. Should they do that or better, they will extend an impressive streak. The Orioles have gone 15 straight AL East series without losing one. That is the longest streak in club history behind a 13-series non-losing streak from 1969. Since early last April, they have won 11 and split four other AL East series.

Gunnar Henderson’s leadoff homer in the last of the first Monday was his third leadoff homer of this year and fifth of his career. With 10 homers, he is tied with the Angels’ Mike Trout for both the AL and MLB lead. Two other players have hit nine homers and three have hit eight.

At his current homer pace, Henderson would hit 58 homers this year. Last night he became the third player in club history to have hit 10 or more before May 1. Brady Anderson hit 11 in 1996 and Frank Robinson hit 10 in 1969. At 22 years, 306 days, Gunnar becomes the youngest player in MLB history with 10 home runs before May 1 (previously: COL’s Trevor Story, 23-167 on 4/30).

Jorge Mateo gets the start at second base tonight for the Orioles and James McCann is behind the plate.

Heston Kjerstad stays on the bench against a left-hander, former Orioles Rule 5 pick Nestor Cortes. He’s been in the lineup once since the Orioles recalled him last Tuesday.

Colton Cowser is in left field and batting ninth. Jordan Westburg is the third baseman.

Dean Kremer is making his sixth start. He’s posted a 4.61 ERA and 1.061 WHIP in 27 1/3 innings.

Kremer struck out 10 batters over 5 1/3 innings in his last start in Anaheim. He has a 5.04 ERA and 1.410 WHIP in nine career starts against the Yankees.

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Through the first part of this 2024 season, the Orioles offense has been very productive. Going into Wednesday’s MLB games, the Orioles ranked first in the majors in homers and homers per game. They ranked No. 2 in slugging and OPS and extra-base hits. 

They ranked third in the majors scoring 5.65 runs per game. That is a big number.

Only once in O’s history have the Orioles scored 900 runs for the season and it was in 1996 during the Steroid era when the team scored 949, the club record. The current team is on pace to score 915 runs.

The team record for homers, also set in 1996, is 257 and their current pace would see them approach that with 254 longballs.

They are doing a lot right on offense. So why is this team not drawing more walks and should we really care if they are scoring so well?

ANAHEIM, Calif. – As this game got into the middle innings today, it seemed Gunnar Henderson and Dean Kremer were battling for the O's top starring roles.

Henderson kept getting hits and driving in runs off lefty pitchers and Kremer kept getting whiffs and putting up zeros with his four-seamer and cutter.

It all added up to an Orioles 6-5 victory as they took a 6-0 lead and then held off the Angels. The Orioles win this series and complete a 4-2 road trip. They head home 16-8 and get ready to host the Athletics on Friday night.

The Orioles are now 3-1 in rubber match games and have won six of their eight series.

After Los Angeles cut a six-run deficit to 6-4 on Zach Neto's homer of Yennier Cano in the eighth and 6-5 in the ninth, closer Craig Kimbrel got the final outs as they held on to win.

ANAHEIM, Calif. – This series began Monday night when the Orioles held off the Angels 4-2 as Craig Kimbrel fanned Mike Trout with the bases loaded and two outs to close out the win.

But with that momentum heading into last night, the Orioles fell behind 7-0 in the fourth inning and lost 7-4 to the Angels.

The Orioles began play Tuesday in first place by a half-game atop the American League East and ended back in second place by a half-game after their loss and a Yankees win over the Athletics.

These two teams have been jockeying for first and second place for several days now and will meet each other in a series that begins Monday night.

But first the Orioles wrap up this series today with the winner taking this series. The Orioles are 15-8 and Tuesday’s loss was just their second in the last nine games and fourth in the past 14. They saw a three-game win streak ended as the Angels snapped their five-game losing streak.

With the Angels starting left-hander Tyler Anderson in today’s rubber match in Anaheim, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde posted a lineup that doesn’t included Heston Kjerstad or Jackson Holliday.

Kjerstad went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in last night’s 7-4 loss. Holliday was 1-for-4 with a run scored and two strikeouts.

Jorge Mateo is playing second base. Adley Rutschman is the designated hitter with James McCann behind the plate.

Rutschman was 3-for-5 last night and raised his average to .323 with a .785 OPS.

Ryan Mountcastle is starting at first base after delivering a pinch-hit single last night. He replaced Ryan O’Hearn, who had a two-run double and walked twice.

After a rough Friday for O’s pitching – especially the bullpen – the Orioles send ace right-hander Corbin Burnes (2-0, 2.28 ERA) to the mound tonight to try and restore order and even the series in Kansas City.

When right-hander Dean Kremer walked back-to-back batters in the last of the sixth with one out, he was allowed to get one more out and then pulled for lefty Keegan Akin with the O’s down 1-0 in the series opener.

A couple of groundballs found holes to plate three more runs and Kansas City was on its way to a five-run sixth and three-run seventh to post a 9-4 win over the Orioles.

The Royals (13-7) lost their first two home games of this season and have now won nine in a row at Kauffman Stadium. They have outscored their opponents 70-26 on the year at home and by 68-17 during the nine straight home wins.

Kansas City and Cleveland are tied for the MLB lead on the season with a plus-45 run differential.

KANSAS CITY – The outs were piling up for Dean Kremer tonight. So were the missed opportunities by the Orioles to give him support.

Kremer retired the first 11 Kansas City batters and only one ball left the infield before Vinnie Pasquantino pulled a splitter into the bullpen in right field. He allowed one other hit until his removal with two outs in the fifth inning, but the team that generated the most runs in the American League had a cold engine.

It finally got hot in the seventh, as usual, and after Kremer was gone. The bullpen, however, wouldn’t allow for a ninth comeback win.

Adley Rutschman hit his first career grand slam after Will Smith loaded the bases with no outs, but damage the previous inning was too much to overcome in a 9-4 loss at Kauffman Stadium.

The Royals scored five times in the sixth, all of them with Keegan Akin pitching, MJ Melendez hit a three-run homer off Dillon Tate in the seventh, and the Orioles fell to 12-7 despite making loud noises again in the late stages.

It’s nothing personal.

DL Hall was a popular teammate inside the Orioles clubhouse. His friends hated to see him traded, though the return softened the blow. But he came back to Baltimore wearing a different uniform and with the intent to beat them.

Ryan Mountcastle and Jordan Westburg hit home runs in the first inning. The pleasantries were over.

Gunnar Henderson delivered an RBI single in the second at 112.8 mph off the bat and Adley Rutschman homered in the third to break a tie. Hall was taking a beating. But the Brewers can dole out their own punishment, and they went hard after Dean Kremer and the bullpen.

Nothing personal.

The Orioles have activated reliever Yohan Ramírez, acquired from the Mets this week for cash considerations, and optioned Jonathan Heasley to Triple-A Norfolk. These moves were anticipated last night.

Heasley allowed six runs in two innings in an 11-1 loss. Manager Brandon Hyde said during his afternoon media session that Ramírez would be arriving within the next few days.

He’s here.

Ramírez, who is wearing No. 48, has made five career relief appearances against Milwaukee and allowed two runs in 6 1/3 innings.

Also, infielder Tony Kemp cleared waivers and elected free agency rather than an outright assignment to Norfolk.

The Orioles can use today’s off day to regroup a bit after two straight walk-off losses at Pittsburgh. They lose their first series of the year but were so close to a sweep and a 7-2 record. 

As they wake up today, they are 5-4 and looking up in the standings at the New York Yankees (8-2) and Boston Red Sox (7-3).

That makes the series that starts Tuesday at Fenway Park even more important. The O’s want to show they can get past the disappointment in Pittsburgh and that they are still Boston’s superior.

They went 7-6 versus the Red Sox in winning the AL East in 2023 and went 3-3 at Fenway Park. They were 23 games better in the final standings.

Right now, this club is also looking for consistent offense. The Orioles scored 24 runs on 24 hits their first two games, reminding some in Birdland of last year’s club that scored 807 runs. But now they have scored 23 runs in the last seven games.

PITTSBURGH – To awaken the Orioles' offense this afternoon, Ryan Mountcastle took the logical route and made loud noises.

It worked for a brief spell, but he couldn’t prevent another slumber. And it killed the series for the Orioles.

Yennier Cano handled closing duties with Craig Kimbrel unavailable and didn't protect a one-run lead. Ke'Bryan Hayes and Jack Suwinski singled, Connor Joe walked to load the bases. Rowdy Tellez grounded to Mountcastle, who got the out at the plate, and Edward Olivares sent a bouncer up the middle that Gunnar Henderson smothered with a diving stop.

With the hint of a game-ending double play in the air, Henderson tapped the bag with his hand and fired the ball past Mountcastle, letting two runs score and giving the Pirates a 3-2 win and back-to-back walk-offs at PNC Park. Henderson was trying to rise from his prone position and execute the latest gem today in the field.

"I usually make that play 99 times out of a hundred, and it just so happens that the throw got away from me right there," Henderson said. "That was pretty unfortunate."