The Orioles offense broke out Friday in a 9-2 win over Seattle. But after taking an early 2-0 lead last night, the Orioles scored just one more run and lost to the Mariners 4-3. That sets up these teams for a rubber match today to end this series and homestand.

The Orioles are 3-2 in rubber match games and Seattle is 5-3.

The Orioles are 28-15 overall and they are 4-3 on the homestand ending this afternoon before the Orioles head to St. Louis and Chicago for a week-long road trip with the Cardinals and White Sox.

The O's bullpen last night allowed four runs or more in a game for just the fifth time all year and for the second time in the last 23 games.

With last night's game, the Orioles have officially extended their sweepless streak to 106 consecutive regular season series of at least two decisions (no ties), passing the 1903-05 New York Giants for the third-longest such streak in major leauge history.

Austin Hays is more than an Orioles teammate to Cedric Mullins. They’ve built a close friendship over the years, climbing up the organizational ladder to the big leagues as homegrown products. They’ve stood in the same outfield with Anthony Santander at Double-A Bowie and talked about being together in Baltimore.

They’ve gone through so many ups and downs, individually and as a club. They lift each other.

Hays knows that Mullins will get hot again after beginning last night with five hits in his last 59 at-bats.

Asked what Mullins must do to get his season back on track, Hays smiled and said, “Just stay positive.”

“He’s still got six homers, he’s got (six) bags, his RBIs are there,” Hays said. “Just had a rough patch where the ball’s not falling. You just stay positive, you just continue to work on the right things. We know how this game goes. It’s a long season and things turn around quick. You have one good week, you’re MLB Player of the Week and all of a sudden your stats look pretty good again and you’re talking about how positive things are going.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. grounded a pitch from Kyle Bradish up the middle Wednesday afternoon with two outs in the third inning, and George Springer surely thought he was going to score from second base. Shortstop Gunnar Henderson couldn’t make a diving stop. He appeared to be the last line of defense.

Jorge Mateo had other ideas, and his ridiculous range.

Mateo darted past the bag and corralled the ball to hold Springer at third base. Unfortunately for the Orioles, Bo Bichette followed with a fly ball to the right field warning track that Anthony Santander couldn’t grab before his knee slammed into the wall, resulting in two runs and a 2-1 lead.

The Fielding Bible Award winner at shortstop in 2022 is excelling at second base this year, to the point where he’s pretty much got regular duty rather than working in a utility role.

The play Wednesday wasn’t the only example of the vast territory he can cover. Remember how he hustled to first base to take the relay throw on a double play? How often does that happen?

Adley Rutschman took a big swing, stumbled back and twisted his torso, looking like a golfer using body English to keep the ball from hitting the water or sand.

Rutschman crossed home plate and was drenched.

The second walk-off home run of his career in the ninth inning gave the Orioles an improbable 3-2 win over the Blue Jays before an announced “Field Trip Day” crowd of 29,578 at Camden Yards. Jordan Westburg led off with an infield single against Jordan Romano after defensive replacement Isiah Kiner-Falefa mishandled a grounder and Rutschman lofted a high drive to right that kept carrying to the first row of the flag court.

The ball bounced onto the field and Rutschman waved his arm above his head to signal home run. A review upheld his gesture.

"I was running out of the box, I got around the bases pretty quick," he said at his locker after a long postgame workout. "It snuck out."

Gunnar Henderson has served as Orioles leadoff hitter in every game this season, but he’s in the cleanup spot this afternoon against the Blue Jays. Jordan Westburg bats first for the first time in his major league career.

Why Westburg?

The Blue Jays announced this morning that they’d give the ball to left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, but matchups haven’t impacted Henderson in the past.

“Just a little bit the way our lineup is with two lefties at the bottom,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “A bunch of things, but having Gunnar in a little bit more of an RBI spot, having those four guys at the top with (Anthony) Santander in the middle there. We’ll see what it looks like.”

Hyde keeps praising the quality of Westburg’s at-bats, which makes the infielder a viable candidate at the top.

The Orioles will try again today to squeeze in a game against the Blue Jays despite more rain in the forecast.

Jordan Westburg is leading off for the first time in his major league career. Gunnar Henderson moves to the cleanup spot for the 11^th time.

Kyle Bradish makes his third start after allowing two runs and striking out 14 batters in 9 2/3 innings following his reinstatement from the injured list. He’s made seven career starts against the Blue Jays and registered a 5.25 ERA and 1.417 WHIP in 36 innings.

Orioles starters have gone an average of 5.7 innings per start, fifth-highest in the majors, per STATS. The Blue Jays are 14^th at 5.3.

George Springer is 7-for-17 with four doubles and a home run against Bradish. Bo Bichette is 5-for-15 with two homers, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is 5-for-17 with a homer, and Alejandro Kirk is 5-for-10 with a double.

After last night’s rainout, the Orioles are still at 40 games played and holding. At 26-14 (.650) they remain on a 105-win pace.

They also have a few players that, at their 40-game paces, would put up some nice final numbers.

* Gunnar Henderson projects to hit 49 homers with 109 RBIs.

* Adley Rutschman projects to hit 32 homers with 101 RBIs.

* Anthony Santander projects to hit 28 with 101.

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.

O’s rookie outfielder Colton Cowser got off to such a hot start this year, that even when his bat cooled a bit in late April, the stat sheet for him still looked good enough that he was named the American League Rookie of the Month for March/April.

After the first 17 games this year, he was batting .400 with a 1.229 OPS. Around that time he was named the AL Player of the Week for a period where he went 10-for-23 with four homers.

But then from April 23-May 2, he was 3-for-28. Cowser did not start for two days in the series last weekend in Cincinnati and realized then he needed to start using left and left-center more and get back to his usual all-fields batting approach.

The one that got him to the big leagues in the first place. The one that helped him win those awards.

“I think I made a conscious effort in Cincinnati to start to get going back that way. I had a couple of days not in the lineup and really was just trying to think about what’s been going on.

The late-inning bullpen decisions today by the Orioles were lacking in intrigue and excitement. Nothing about the closer. Nothing about protecting a lead. The top story angle also was being reset.

And then, the threat arrived when Anthony Santander hit a home run with two outs in the eighth inning to tie the game. Perhaps there was hope for hysteria after all.  

The movements and usages of the relievers were back to being Baltimore obsessions, but the Orioles didn’t let the game carry to a save situation. Better to just walk it off and win the series.

The Orioles fell behind in the fifth inning before Santander’s 410-foot shot to center off Diamondbacks reliever Kevin Ginkel, and Jordan Westburg poked a single down the right field line on Bryce Jarvis' first pitch of the 11th to score Colton Cowser in a 5-4 victory before an announced crowd of 27,882 at Camden Yards.

Danny Coulombe retired the three batters he faced without the automatic runner budging from second base, Craig Kimbrel hit Christian Walker but stranded runners on the corners in the 11th with a strikeout and force play, and the Orioles improved to 26-12.

Craig Kimbrel stood up tonight, removed his jacket and began to throw in the Orioles’ bullpen.

It was the bottom of the sixth inning.

Kimbrel said earlier in the day that he expected to get the ball again in a save situation, but he jogged onto the field for the top of the seventh with the Orioles ahead 3-2. The lights flickered as if he were closing. The entrance didn’t change.

Just the timing of it.

Kimbrel retired the Diamondbacks in order on a 101.4 mph line drive to Ryan Mountcastle, a strikeout at 94.4 mph and a fly ball near the warning track in right field. Twelve pitches, eight for strikes, and Kimbrel was done.

One of the many great things about the Orioles having so many good young players is that many of them came up together. Not only are they great friends – which no doubt helps them win on the field – but they know each other’s games so well.

They can provide insights and scouting reports on each other that might rival what a scout might see or report.

Take Jordan Westburg and Gunnar Henderson. Westburg once described himself as the older brother in the relationship. Now he knows younger bro is all grown up.

The 2023 American League Rookie of the Year is now playing like a future MVP. There is little Gunnar Henderson can’t do on a baseball field. He’s doing it all this year for the Orioles, batting .274 with a .914 OPS and 10 homers. 

“It doesn’t surprise me. To me it just seems like he’s taking that natural progression,” Westburg told me over the weekend in Cincinnati. “And he’s getting older, having more experience, maturing. But his strong game has always been there. I have always had the confidence in the ability that he is showing now. So, it doesn’t surprise me.

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.

Jordan Westburg began yesterday’s game on the bench, only the second time this season that his name was missing from the lineup. He wouldn’t budge because of a stomach virus, robbing the Orioles of a bat that might have impacted the outcome of the game, a 7-6 loss to the Athletics.

Westburg has made 18 starts at third base and six at second, and he’s also served once as the designated hitter. He’ll return to the infield tonight if he’s recovered from the bug, still charged with only one error in 93 major league games.

Memories are fuzzy when it comes to identifying the location and exact situation, but Westburg’s lone miscue happened on Aug. 15, 2023 in San Diego. Manager Brandon Hyde did some shuffling after the top of the seventh inning, moving Ramón Urías from third base to first, shifting Ryan O’Hearn from first to right field, and sending Westburg into the game to play third.

The Orioles were down 10-1 when the first batter in the inning, Xander Bogaerts reached on a ground ball that Westburg fielded to his left before bouncing the throw. Urías couldn’t handle it and Westburg was charged with the error.

Bogaerts raced to third base on Jake Cronenworth’s double, but Mike Baumann escaped the jam with two strikeouts and a fly ball. No harm done.

After letting a one-run lead in the ninth get away in last night’s 3-2 loss in 10 innings to Oakland, the Orioles (16-9) host the Athletics (11-16) today in the second of a three-game series.

Oakland has scored three runs or less in eight straight games, scoring 21 in that span. They have also homered in each of the eight games and this is now the longest such streak in MLB history.

Overall, the A’s have homered in 11 consecutive games (15 home runs total), which is the longest such streak by an A’s team over the last three seasons. The last longer streak was a 13-game streak from Aug. 1-16, 2021.

After Friday’s win, the Athletics are 6-5 in one-run games. The 11 one-run decisions are tied with the Yankees for the most in the majors. However, four of their losses have been by eight or more runs so Oakland has a run differential of -37, which is the fourth lowest in the majors.

Going into Friday’s series opener, the Orioles had scored at least seven runs in four straight games against the A’s. Baltimore has never scored 7+ runs in five consecutive games against Oakland and won’t in this run after being held to two runs Friday. The Orioles are 0-5 when scoring two runs or less.

Before Friday’s game, the Orioles made a tough decision. They decided to send 20-year-old Jackson Holliday, the No. 1 ranked prospect in the sport, back to the minor leagues.

After he showed the club a hot bat in spring training and also at the start of the Triple-A season for Norfolk, he struggled in his first shot at the big leagues.

Just a couple of days before the Orioles would have guaranteed he would stay with the club at least for seven big league seasons, they called him up, showing this was not about service time. But the kid struggled. He played solid defense and showed plenty of capabilities at second base. But he failed to hit big-league pitching. At least this time, going 2-for-34 with 18 strikeouts.  

"Again, ultimately, do I like the way that this has gone in April totally? No, and I feel responsible for that,” Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said before the game. “But it’s possible, just like it was for Grayson (Rodriguez) or Colton Cowser or any of these guys, that this was sort of a necessary development episode to be exposed to this before you’re fully ready for it. And now the work that you put in, you kind of know exactly what you need to do when you get back up there, and that’s valuable.

“It comes at a cost to get that negative feedback, but it’s valuable, and I guarantee you Jackson’s going to channel that well.”

Gunnar Henderson is having a remarkable start to his season for the Orioles and is second in the American League with an OPS of 1.022. One of his teammates is fifth and it's not Adley Rutschman or Anthony Santander, Ryan O'Hearn or Ryan Mountcastle. It's not Colton Cowser, who has an OPS of 1.139 but not enough plate appearances to qualify for league leaders.

It is Orioles infielder Jordan Westburg, who like his friend and teammate Cowser, has sure taken his game to a higher level this season. And with an OPS of .941, it is Westburg that ranks fifth-best right now in the AL. He is keeping company with some great hitters as the Yankees Juan Soto is one spot ahead of him while Mike Trout and Bobby Witt Jr. are behind Westburg.

After waiting his chance to get to the bigs – he had 714 plate appearances combined in 2022 and 2023 at Triple-A Norfolk – he finally got his first big league opportunity late last June.

He’s been running with it ever since.

And this is a high draft pick, but not a 1/1 like Rutschman or Jackson Holliday or the No. 2 pick in the draft like Heston Kjerstad or No. 5 like Cowser. He was taken No. 30 overall out of Mississippi State in the 2020 MLB Draft.

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Maybe Orioles right-hander Grayson Rodriguez was due for a poor outing. He had ended last year pitching to an ERA of 2.26 his last 12 regular-season starts and then started the 2024 season going 3-0 with a 2.63 ERA over four starts.

That run ended big time Tuesday night at Angel Stadium when the home team took a 7-0 lead in the fourth and then the Los Angeles Angels held off a Baltimore rally to win 7-4.

The Orioles began the day in first place by a ½ game but ended it in second by a ½ game as they lost and the New York Yankees won.

With the Orioles down big early, Rodriguez came out for the fifth inning with his pitch count at 71 but was removed for Dillon Tate with one out and one on. Manager Brandon Hyde explained to a reporter who asked if he kept Rodriguez in to try and build his confidence, that it wasn’t about that at all.

“Not really worried about his confidence," he said. "That was more about we had a long way to go in the game and our bullpen has been pretty taxed, so tried to get through that fifth inning.”

My mailbag didn’t make it to Anaheim. No direct flights. Refused to fly into LAX.

What am I supposed to do?

I emptied it at home. Let’s get to it, the latest sequel to the beloved 2008 original.

Same rules apply, which is very few. Closer to none. I like editing questions about as much as I like the middle seat on a Southwest flight. Your questions are crystal clear. I don’t need to enhance the clarity. Your style is fine, except for those skinny slacks that don’t go past the top of your ankles.

Also, my mailbag sticks your mailbag with the bar tab, and yours only had water.