The Orioles have had a pair of impressive wins over the Tampa Bay Rays and can win this series with a victory tonight. It's the third game of a four-game series and the sixth of a seven-game homestand.

The Orioles (49-48) moved ahead of the Boston Red Sox and into fourth-place with Tuesday's 5-3 comeback win. Ramón Urías hit a two-run homer to take Baltimore from behind by one to ahead by one. It was his first career go-ahead homer in the eighth inning or later.

Urías has recorded a hit in eight straight games while batting .419/.419/.903 (13-for-31) with three doubles, four homers, seven runs and 10 RBIs during the stretch. The eight-game streak is one shy of his career-high nine-game streak from May 15 to June 29, 2021.

He has hit .397/.426/.707 (23-for-58) with three doubles, five home runs, 11 runs scored and 18 RBIs in 17 games since being reinstated from the 10-day injured list on July 4. Urías has hit safely in 14 of those 17 games with seven multi-hit efforts. Last night, Ramón and Luis Urías of the Milwaukee Brewers became the first brothers to record game-winning RBIs on the same day since Lourdes (TOR) and Yuli (HOU) Gurriel in 2021.

O's shortstop Jorge Mateo has hit safely in nine of his last 10 games with an at-bat since July 10 - including four multi-hit efforts - hitting .342/.359/.632 (13-for-38) with four doubles, two triples, one home run, seven runs scored, three RBIs and three stolen bases during this stretch. He has also hit safely in seven straight games, and 11 of his last 14 games with an at-bat. The O's are 28-22 when Mateo records a hit, 9-2 when he records multiple hits and 16-4 when he drives in a run. Mateo's 24 stolen bases rank second in MLB behind only Miami's Jon Berti (28 SBs).

Adley Rutschman is batting second tonight as the Orioles attempt to secure another series win against the Rays.

Terrin Vavra has media gathered at his locker this afternoon, but his name isn’t in the lineup. His major league debut remains on hold.

Ramón Urías, who hit the decisive two-run homer last night in the eighth inning, is batting .397/.426/.707 in 17 games this month with three doubles, five home runs and 18 RBIs.

Cedric Mullins hit his 13^th career leadoff home run last night, tying him for second in club history with Don Buford, Al Bumbry and Brian Roberts. Brady Anderson is first with 44.

Tyler Wells is 7-6 with a 3.69 ERA and 1.096 WHIP in 19 starts. He’s allowed 11 runs and 17 hits in his last three starts over 14 2/3 innings.

Shane McClanahan, the American League’s starter in the All-Star Game, threw one pitch tonight and watched the ball land on the flag court in right field. Cedric Mullins wasn’t going to let the Baltimore native get too comfortable in his hometown.

Anthony Santander belted his team-leading 17^th home run in the fourth inning, the Orioles’ first hit since Mullins’ blast. McClanahan retired the next 10 batters, with the two solo shots the only hits he allowed through seven innings.

He was cruising.

And then he was gone, with manager Kevin Cash deciding 81 pitches were enough.

Also gone was the Rays’ slim lead.

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde has made some changes to tonight’s lineup, opening a four-game home series against the Rays with Jonathan Araúz at shortstop and Trey Mancini and Jorge Mateo on the bench.

Araúz is 4-for-24 with the Orioles and hasn’t played since July 8. His last start was July 7.

Mancini is 0-for-20 with nine strikeouts in his last five games. He’s hitless in his last 22 at-bats.

Mateo has been playing every day and is due for a breather.

Adley Rutschman has moved back up to second in the order. Anthony Santander is batting fourth as the designated hitter, with Ryan McKenna in right field.

The curveball that Dean Kremer fed Aaron Judge in the first inning today made the Yankees slugger look bad. Or at least human.

Judge took his usual mighty cut, caught only air, and walked back to the dugout with a rare strikeout in the series.

Kremer tried the same pitch in the third inning with a runner on base, and Judge destroyed it with the same ferocity.

The bender almost broke a seat in the section behind the left field bleachers, a 456-foot shot to increase a lead that the Yankees held throughout the steamy afternoon in a 6-0 win over the Orioles before an announced crowd of 25,623 at Camden Yards.

All-Star Nestor Cortes Jr. tossed six scoreless innings, and his former team moved below .500 again at 47-48. The Orioles still haven’t won two series against the Yankees in the same season since 2017.

The New York Yankees (65-31), who own the best record in the majors, have lost just five series all year, one already against the Orioles. The O's can win a second series this season versus the Yankees if they take the series finale today at Oriole Park.

After Friday's 7-6 loss to New York, the Orioles fell behind 3-0 after four innings last night. But they rallied to beat the Yankees 6-3, scoring two runs each in the fifth, seventh and eighth innings.

Baltimore's two-run fifth pulled them within 3-2, the two-run seventh put them ahead and the Ramón Urías two-run homer in the eighth added some big-time late insurance runs.

Batting No. 8 and No. 9, Urías and Jorge Mateo combined to go 5-for-8 with four runs and three RBIs.

The Orioles have won 12 of their last 15, 17 of 25 and 23 of the last 35 games. They are now 26-18 at home and are 9-1 their past 10 home games.

Earlier this season, when he wasn’t a hitter on a heater, the Orioles' Ramón Urías, had you interviewed him then, would have expressed complete confidence in his offense and that his stats would soon come around.

This was when his OPS was .648 at the end of May. The underlying data about his contact rates, exit velocity and other numbers told him he was doing some good things. Just not getting consistently good results.

And now that has changed.

“I just stayed confident,” he said this morning in the Baltimore clubhouse. “I was trusting what I was doing and I was feeling good. Didn’t have a ton of luck. But I just stayed positive and kept working. I stayed focused and things are going well right now.

“I mean I was talking with our hitting coach and Ryan (Fuller) told me then, ‘You’re doing well.’ Sometimes you can’t control it all but he said I was hitting the ball good and my expected batting average was up there. He said, ‘Don’t worry and good things are going to happen.’ That is what he was telling me and at some point they are going to match during the season.”

Trey Mancini is starting in right field today, with Adley Rutschman the designated hitter for the final game of the Orioles’ series against the Yankees at Camden Yards.

Rutschman moves down from second to fifth in the order. He has 16 doubles since June 10.

Tyler Nevin is starting at third base.

Ramón Urías is batting .404/.440/.723 (19-for-47) with three doubles, four home runs, 16 RBIs and 10 runs scored since being reinstated from the 10-day injured list on July 4. He’s the second baseman today.

Dean Kremer made eight starts in the first half and posted a 2.59 ERA and 1.320 WHIP in 41 2/3 innings. He didn’t allow a run in four of his last six starts, but in the others surrendered a total of eight runs and 16 hits in 8 2/3.

A series lost to close out the first half was followed by last night’s defeat and an early deficit tonight. Baseball’s surprise team was threatening to slip two games below .500. And the question loomed whether it could tap the brakes and avoid a serious crash.

The competitive nature of the Orioles, the non-stop motor, figures to pull them through some of the most difficult stretches. There’s no rest stop until perhaps Cincinnati – if a team that tied for the worst record last year is granted entrance. They must keep going.

Aaron Judge doubled twice, singled and drove in two runs within the first four innings. Gerrit Cole weathered a fifth-inning storm, when the Orioles scored twice with two outs, came back out for the seventh north of 100 pitches and lost the lead after two batters.

This was going to be typical Orioles. Count them out, watch them rally and wait for the final result, knowing it would be close.

The bottom of the order rose to the occasion again, the bullpen did its usual work, and the Orioles defeated the Yankees 6-3 before an announced crowd of 36,361 at Camden Yards, their largest non-opening day gathering since 2018.

The Orioles have completed the composition of their rotation through the first turn following the All-Star break.

Austin Voth starts Monday against the Rays at Camden Yards and Spenser Watkins starts Tuesday. No changes to the rotation beyond its order.

Tyler Wells and Jordan Lyles are lined up to start the last two games of the series.

Ramón Urías is batting .372/.413/.628 (16-for-43) with two doubles, three home runs, 14 RBIs, three walks and eight runs scored in 13 games since being reinstated from the 10-day injured list on July 4. He has five multi-hit games during that stretch, and the 14 RBIs are tied for fourth in the American League and fifth in the majors.

Urías leads the Orioles in hard-hit percentage (50 percent) and ranks second in average exit velocity at 90.8 mph, according to Statcast. His hard-hit rate places him in the top seven percent in the majors.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Orioles manager Brandon Hyde sent bullpen catcher Ben Carhart to home plate tonight for the exchange of lineup cards. As Carhart’s done during every game of the winning streak except one, on July 9, when Tyler Nevin was the sentimental choice with his father, Phil, managing the Angels.

Carhart still gets credited with the win.

Hyde keeps wearing his uniform jersey rather than the hoodie that he favors. He wasn’t changing his wardrobe until the Orioles lost.

Worse choices have been made inside a superstitious clubhouse and dugout. Hyde simply had to match his shirt and pants.

Clothes make the manager.

ABERDEEN, Md. – He was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft and outfielder Heston Kjerstad was playing like it at low Single-A Delmarva, where he went 37-for-80 in 22 games. Yes, that is prolific hitting and makes you wonder if after moving to high Single-A Aberdeen this week whether a move to Double-A later this year is in reach for Kjerstad.

Earlier this week, after his promotion to the IronBirds, I asked O’s director of player development Matt Blood about the 23-year-old outfielder. The Orioles surely are confident that Kjerstad will do well with the IronBirds, but they also know that last summer Gunnar Henderson went 1-for-31 to start his time with Aberdeen.

“He’s definitely going to face challenges. We’ll see,” said Blood. “We’re expecting him to perform well but any player can go through a slump. Great players in the major leagues go through them. We’ll see how it goes for him but we’re expecting him to continue to play well.”

So could the club move him to Double-A later this summer?

“It’s the same answer I would give you on any player,” said Blood. “We keep track of performance and their age and we like to challenge the player. So, if they show us they have bypassed the level, then we start considering them needing a greater challenge. He’s not different than anyone else.”

CHICAGO – The Orioles left Baltimore and didn’t come back down to earth.

Ivy climbs the walls here. Hot teams occasionally wilt. The Orioles lived it in the past. But they’re a stubborn bunch.

Ramón Urías hit a go-ahead, two-run homer tonight in the top of the fourth inning, Jorge Mateo also put a ball into the left field seats, Jordan Lyles recovered from another slow start, and the Orioles increased their winning streak to nine games and reached .500 with a 4-2 victory over the Cubs before an announced crowd of 31,079 at Wrigley Field.

The Orioles haven’t won nine in a row since stringing together 13 in September 1999. They haven’t posted as many victories as defeats since April 10, 2021.

They haven’t been .500 this late in a season since Sept. 9, 2017, when they were 71-71 during a six-game losing streak. They dropped nine of 10 to fall out of playoff contention.

With their latest victory and walk-off win now a day behind them, the Orioles try to extend their longest win streak in two years this afternoon as they again host the Los Angeles Angels at Camden Yards. The Orioles are 5-0 on this seven-game homestand that ends Sunday.

Baltimore (41-44) has a six-game win streak for the first time since Aug. 7-13, 2020. The six wins have produced three walk-off wins, two in extra innings, four by a single run and six victories by just nine total runs. The team has not won seven in a row since Aug. 23-30, 2017.

The Orioles have put themselves into contention for the sixth and final playoff spot in the American League. That spot is now held by Toronto (45-40), which is two games ahead of Seattle, three up on Cleveland and four ahead of the Orioles for that spot.

The Orioles have won 11 of 16 and 17 of their past 26 games. They are 20-14 since June 1 and 34-30 since May 1. The Orioles improved to 23-17 at home with Friday’s win and they are 10-3 their last 13 home games.

More notes on Friday’s amazing win, which came in the last of the ninth with two outs and none on and Los Angeles leading 4-2 before the Orioles recorded four straight hits and all the batters had two strikes on them:

What a crazy way to win a crazy game.

A walk-off hit by pitch in the last of the 10^th. That is how the Orioles beat the Texas Rangers 7-6 today to start a series and week-long homestand. This after they fell behind in the top of the ninth and had to score in the home half to tie it up.

Lefty Matt Moore came on for Texas in the 10^th with placed runner Austin Hays on second base. He then muffed a bunt attempt by Rougned Odor that was scored a hit to put runners on the corners, and then walked Ramón Urías intentionally to load the bases with no outs. Moore’s next pitch hit shortstop Jorge Mateo near the left knee and he limped toward first base as the game ended in bizarre fashion.

A walk-off hit by pitch giving the Orioles a record of 37-44 at the midpoint of their year with their sixth walk-off win of 2022. They were 27-54 at this point in the 2021 season.

An inning earlier we saw what was likely Adley Rutschman's biggest hit as an Oriole and it forced extra innings. Down to their last out in the ninth down by one, Rutschman lined a double off the right field wall to tie Texas 6-6 and force a 10th inning. Rutschman lined a 96 mph fastball from closer Joe Barlow for the tie. He began today 0-for-15 his previous four games.

The Orioles latest roster move today brings infielder Ramón Urías back to the team, activated from the 10-day injured list while Richie Martin was optioned back to Triple-A. Urías has not played since June 9 or batted since June 7, out with a strained left oblique.

In 49 games and 188 at-bats this year he was hitting .225/.273/.387/.660 with six homers and 18 RBIs. Urías played in two rehab games over the weekend with Double-A Bowie, going 0-for-7 with one walk and three strikeouts.

“He felt great last night,” manager Brandon Hyde said during his pregame press conference. “Nice to see him back. Feels healthy, he’s ready to go. Get a day off today, available off the bench, but nice to see him back.”

As for Urías he said, “I feel good and feel like I’m ready.” But he added there was some apprehension taking swings in his first game at Bowie on Saturday.

“The first day not really, I felt like a little scared,” he said this morning in the Baltimore clubhouse. “Afraid to swing. But the second game I had a more confident swing and everything feels good. But like I say I feel ready now. Never had an oblique injury before and maybe I was feeling a little tight, but no pain at all, so that’s good. Throwing is just fine, it never bothered me to throw the baseball.”

The Orioles began their homestand with a roster move today, activating infielder Ramón Urías from the 10-day injured list and optioning infielder Richie Martin to Triple-A Norfolk.

Urías returns from a strained left oblique. He appeared in two rehab games at Double-A Bowie and went 0-for-7 with three strikeouts.

Martin has gone 5-for-30 with two triples and 10 strikeouts with the Orioles. He started at shortstop yesterday in Minnesota.

Urías is on the bench for today’s game against the Rangers. Jonathan Araúz is the third baseman, Jorge Mateo is the shortstop and Rougned Odor is starting at second base.

Fourteen of Odor’s last 22 hits since May 20 have gone for extra bases. He hit a home run yesterday on the ninth pitch of his at-bat, the longest of his career that resulted in a homer.

MINNEAPOLIS - The Orioles are closing out their series in Minnesota today, and their road trip, with the same infield options on their roster.

Change is coming.

Ramón Urías began his injury rehab assignment last night at Double-A Bowie, starting at third base and going 0-for-3 with three strikeouts and committing a fielding error. He hadn’t played since June 9, due to a strained left oblique, or received an at-bat since June 7.

There’s bound to be some rust. And the Orioles will be careful to make sure he doesn’t experience any setbacks with an injury that requires a lengthy period of inactivity.

Urías hasn’t been the same hitter who crafted a .279/.361/.412 line in 296 plate appearances, but he can move around the infield and has some pop. His six home runs in 188 plate appearances are one fewer than he totaled last season, but he’s slashing .225/.273/.387.

CHICAGO – Rougned Odor is out of tonight’s lineup with some stiffness in his back. He could be available off the bench.

Odor pinch-hit for Richie Martin last night and struck out. He felt the discomfort on one swing and dropped to his knee.

Martin is starting tonight at second base.

Odor normally would be playing against White Sox right-hander Johnny Cueto.

Spenser Watkins remains available to start Saturday afternoon after working only one inning in last night’s start for Triple-A Norfolk. Watkins threw 10 pitches.

The Orioles are listing three of their four starters for the upcoming series in Chicago. Saturday afternoon remains wide open and is largely dependent on how manager Brandon Hyde uses his bullpen.

Austin Voth could get the ball again after starting Sunday against the Rays as a last-minute replacement for Jordan Lyles, who was scratched due to a stomach virus. Voth threw 41 pitches in 2 2/3 scoreless innings and could be stretched out for a longer outing.

“Voth made that spot start for us the other day and did a great job,” Hyde said today. “He is a possibility, but I might use him Thursday or Friday, also, and then he’s not a possibility. We’re going to kind of wait until last minute on this one and go from there.”

Spenser Watkins is starting tonight for Triple-A Norfolk but is expected to be removed early, keeping him as an option for Saturday. Denyi Reyes is the third possibility.

Watkins may go only one inning tonight.