KANSAS CITY – Colton Cowser might chug a fountain drink later today with his postgame meal. Maybe crank up an old Fountains of Wayne tune. He’s got a theme going and should play it out before the team arrives in Anaheim later tonight.

Less than 16 hours after tossing a baseball over his head and into the fountain in left field, forgetting that closer Craig Kimbrel would want to keep it, Cowser launched a four-seamer from Royals starter Seth Lugo into the waterfall in right-center.

A stadium worker retrieved that one, as well, though it didn’t represent any sort of milestone. More like Cowser washing down a delicious irony.

"Did it get there?" Cowser asked. "I still feel terrible about what happened yesterday. I've apologized to Craig so much. But yeah, it's kind of funny, I guess. I don't think it's crazy funny, but put a good swing on it, so pretty proud of myself there."

Jordan Westburg followed Cowser’s third-inning blast with a home run to left that also would have splashed down if not for a fan in the top row of bleachers deflecting it with his hand. Not everyone was on board.

KANSAS CITY – The overflow locker next to Craig Kimbrel held the usual items this morning – a suitcase, a couple of backpacks and some hoodies on hangers. Sitting on the top shelf, however, was a rarity. Maybe a first for the 15-year veteran.

A plastic container filled with uncooked rice.

This isn’t part of a special diet. The grains covered the baseball from last night’s 422^nd career save that tied Kimbrel with Billy Wagner for seventh place on the all-time list.

Left fielder Colton Cowser caught a fly ball to seal a 9-7 win and chucked it over his shoulder and into the iconic fountain at Kauffman Stadium. Or, “yeeted it,” as he sheepishly told the media afterward.

Cowser figured out his mistake almost immediately and stadium workers retrieved the soaked baseball. There were two at the bottom. The fresher one was identified as belonging to Kimbrel.

KANSAS CITY – The Orioles return to their left-handed lineup this afternoon as they try to win the series against the Royals.

Cedric Mullins returns to center field, Colton Cowser to left and Jackson Holliday to second base.

Cowser is batting .400 against fastballs this season after hitting .087 in 2023.

Jordan Westburg is batting .438 (14-for-32) with eight RBIs during an eight-game hitting streak. He’s posted a .421 average over his last 10 games, compared to .194 in his first nine.

Anthony Santander was the first Orioles player last night with three doubles since Austin Hays on April 28, 2022 in the Bronx. He’s in right field again today.

The Orioles are 16 games into the 2024 season, settling into second place and confident that their best baseball is ahead of them. The division battles are slow building, with the competition so far limited to the three-game sweep in Boston. They must wait until April 29 to begin a four-game set against the Yankees before traveling to Cincinnati and D.C., and hosting the Diamondbacks.

No one should wait for more observations and surprises, the stuff that might not have been safe bets during the winter or the early days in camp. The stuff that's getting noticed.

Colton Cowser is tied for the Orioles’ home run lead.

He had sole possession until Gunnar Henderson and Cedric Mullins caught up to him last night.

Cowser needed 37 games to hit his first major league home run. He belted two that night in Boston and four over four games, including Sunday’s 422-foot blast to right-center field in the eighth inning.

After facing a hot-hitting Brewers team over the weekend - and losing two of three games - the Orioles welcome the Twins to town tonight to begin a three-game series that will wrap up the current homestand. 

The Twins (6-8) are in fourth in the American League Central, four games behind the division-leading Guardians.

Minnesota is batting .185 as a team through 14 games and that ranks 15th and last among all clubs in the American League and 30th and last in the majors. The Twins .281 OBP is 13th in the AL and they are 13th in slugging (.325) and OPS (.606). 

The Twins average 3.5 runs per game to rank 12th in the AL and 27th in the majors. They scored 20 runs in splitting four games over the weekend at Detroit. But they have scored three runs or fewer nine times and they have the fourth-highest strikeout total as batters in the AL at 147.

The Twins and Orioles are playing each other for the first of six games in 2024. Minnesota will host the O's for three games to complete the regular season from Sept. 27-29. The Twins went 2-4 vs. Baltimore last season, going 2-1 at Camden Yards and 0-3 at Target Field.

Orioles right-hander Kyle Bradish begins his injury rehab assignment Tuesday night at Double-A Bowie. The Baysox are playing the Altoona Curve, a Pirates affiliate, with first pitch scheduled for 6:05 p.m.

Bradish was supposed to debut last Thursday at High-A Aberdeen, but he threw live batting practice due to the inclement weather. He had a bullpen session Saturday at Camden Yards and keeps reporting positive progress.

The Bowie start will be Bradish’s first since Game 1 of the Division Series against the Rangers. He was diagnosed in January with a sprained ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and received a platelet-rich plasma injection.

The Orioles want to get multiple innings out of Bradish.

“I think we’re hoping somewhere between two and three innings, in between 40-50 pitches would be ideal,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “See how he feels after every inning, but that would be best-case scenario.”

The Orioles avoided a sweep in the Brewers series with yesterday’s 6-4 win, running their streak in the regular season to 96. Jackson Holliday collected his first major league hit with a single in the seventh inning, and he’s batting ninth and playing second base tonight against the Twins at Camden Yards.

Holliday was 0-for-13 before his ground ball reached right field.

“Not so much difficult, just a lot, but it’s been fun,” he told the media at his locker. “It’s quite an experience. I don’t think I’d ever take it for granted, the experience that I’ve had and it’s a good learning experience. If you are 0-for three or four games, that’s going to happen in baseball. I’d prefer it not to happen at the beginning of my career, but it’s going to happen and I’m glad to hopefully learn from it.”

Anthony Santander gets a breather tonight, with Colton Cowser in right field and Austin Hays in left.

Cedric Mullins homered yesterday and has a six-game hitting streak.

Has there been a hitter with stats so radically different from one year to the next than Orioles outfielder Colton Cowser?

Maybe there has been, but when your OPS gains over 1.000 points, from .433 last year to 1.444 this year after Sunday’s game, that is a big leap up. And yes, the sample size is small in both seasons – he had 77 plate appearances last year and has 38 this season.

“Very proud of him, very happy with his adjustments. He took what we said into the offseason, worked with his coach back in Texas. Made great adjustments, not just the physical adjustments, but the mental adjustments too. Really confident at the plate and goes in with a great plan of attack,” O’s co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller said before Sunday’s game.

Cowser hit a solo homer in the last of the eighth yesterday to provide a big insurance run as the Orioles beat Milwaukee 6-4. He is the first Oriole with four homers in four games since Ryan Mountcastle from April 10-13, 2023. He is the first Oriole rookie to do that since Mountcastle from June 16-19, 2021.

Through Saturday's games, Cowser’s K rate had dropped year-over-year from 28.6 to 23.5 and his average exit velocity increased from 87.4 to 92.7 mph. His hard-hit rate, which was 42.5 last year is now 58.3.

The last mailbag felt emptied but actually had more to it. I need an umpire to stop by my house and check the bottom for sticky substances.

As everyone knows, there’s nothing worse than a sticky bottom. But I digress …

Let’s do a morning mashup, combining a mailbag with leftovers. Much safer than the two liquids you poured together in chemistry class.

Complaining about the clarity, lengthy, style, grammar or brevity will get you edited right out of here.

Also, my mailbag makes your mailbag use the homer hose for a good cleansing.  

He had to wait until his third at-bat today and the 14^th of his major league career, but Jackson Holliday’s first hit came in the last of the seventh today. And it helped fuel a game-winning, two-run rally for the Orioles.

With the O's trailing 4-3 after Milwaukee's Blake Perkins homered off Yennier Cano in the top of the seventh, Jordan Westburg led off the home seventh and punched a single into left.

Then Holliday had his big moment.

Off reliever Abner Uribe, he hit a 1-0 two-seamer at 99.3 mph into right field for a groundball single at 101.4 mph off the bat. Westburg scampered to third and a rally was brewing in Birdland. That hit made Holliday now 1-for-14.

Gunnar Henderson followed with a line single to right to score a run and tie it 4-4, and Holliday made a dash for third and beat the throw. That was important as the next batter, Adley Rutschman, grounded into a 6-3 double play. But because he was on third, Holliday scored the go-ahead run for the 5-4 lead.  

Different venue, same hot bat for Orioles outfielder Colton Cowser. On a night when the Orioles lost 11-1 to the Brewers, the rookie with the sweet lefty swing produced more offense for the Orioles.

Cowser is taking a one-day-at-a-time approach to put up big numbers so far this year.

“Looking forward to every day, having a fresh start, whether the night before was good or bad,” he said before the series opener.

Then he smoked a double at 103.5 mph in the first inning and hit a solo homer off winning pitcher Freddy Peralta that was 105.1 off the bat in the third.

Over the last four games, Cowser is 8-for-16 with seven extra-base hits (four doubles and three homers) and 11 RBIs. He has driven in a run in four consecutive games.

The question inevitably comes in casual conversations or radio and television interviews.  And the phrase “pleasant problem” is the chaser.

The constant change in Orioles lineups, with players rotating in the field as if waiting for the music to stop and plopping down, is becoming a less familiar sight. We haven’t gone back to the ‘70s. They want wide margins of victory over wide lapels. But manager Brandon Hyde isn’t gonna fix what ain’t broken and he’s found an order that’s difficult to break up.

An infielder stocked with versatile players is beginning to solidify with Gunnar Henderson at shortstop, Jackson Holliday at second base and Jordan Westburg at third. The first base options remain Ryan Mountcastle or Ryan O’Hearn, the latter serving as designated hitter in the past three games before last night and six overall.

They’ve only played 13.

Jorge Mateo might be in the tightest bind because he isn’t used at third base. It’s pretty much middle infield, which is tougher to crack than a bank safe, or maybe a token appearance in center.

There will be a day when Jackson Holliday walks into a clubhouse and goes to his locker, turns back around and is ignored. No recorders or cameras. No media forming the shape of a basketball three-point arc.

He will be a major league player arriving for work. Perhaps getting a bite to eat, since he dresses next to the entrance to the kitchen. Perhaps just relaxing before fulfilling the on-field obligations.

We aren’t there yet.

“Looking forward to it, but it’s awesome,” he said earlier today, flashing that boyish grin. “Obviously doing something right if you’ve got all this attention. But yeah, looking forward to that. Just excited to play.”

Holliday jogged onto the field about 15 minutes before first pitch and fans cheered him. Stretching out a hamstring could bring a standing ovation. The city is Holliday happy, and he’d love to give them more reasons beyond his arrival.

After a three-game series sweep at Boston, the Orioles (8-4) begin a two-team, six-game homestand tonight versus the Milwaukee Brewers (8-3).

The Orioles begin play tonight 1.5 games behind New York for the AL East lead. Milwaukee and Pittsburgh are tied for first atop the NL Central, but the Brewers lead by percentage points.

Milwaukee was rained out Thursday at Cincinnati. They began the year going 3-0 at the New York Mets and have gone 1-1 versus Minnesota, and 2-1 each versus Seattle and Cincinnati.

Milwaukee has made the playoffs five times the last six years and went 92-70 last year. They won NL Central titles in 2018, 2021 and 2023. The Brewers have won three of their last four games and are 5-1 in road games.

Former Brewer right-hander Corbin Burnes, traded to the Orioles on Feb. 1 for DL Hall, Joey Ortiz and a draft pick, will pitch Sunday against his former team. Hall and Ortiz return this weekend with the Brewers. Hall is 0-1 with a 4.82 ERA in two starts and is scheduled to pitch tomorrow. In 10 games, Ortiz is 6-for-20 with a double, one RBI and a .767 OPS. He hit .212 (7-for-33) last year in 15 games with the Orioles.

The Boston Red Sox began this series with the Orioles riding high at 7-3 after a season-opening West Coast road trip. Their team ERA was 1.49 at first pitch Tuesday night, the club’s lowest mark through 10 games since the Live Ball era which began in 1920.

But in this series, in which the Orioles swept them three in a row, Baltimore produced 23 runs on 31 hits, hit five homers – four last night – and went 15-for-37 (.405) batting with runners in scoring position.

Last night was their sixth comeback win of the 2024 season and they outscored Boston in the series 19-2 from the sixth inning on.

The Orioles have put up big numbers later in games this year. In fact, through the fifth innings of their games so far, they have been outscored 28-23. But from the sixth inning on, they have outscored their opponents 47-14. So they are -5 in runs in the first five innings and +33 from the sixth inning on.

That is a remarkable stat.

BOSTON – The Orioles won’t ever profile as a one-prospect team. Win or lose, they’re going to spread the young talent wealth.

They also let the older guys have their moments, a combination that played out again tonight. It usually works in their favor.

It went absolutely nuts late in tonight's game.

Colton Cowser hit his first two major league home runs, including a three-run shot off Isaiah Campbell in a six-run 10th inning in the Orioles' 9-4 victory over the Red Sox.

The ball traveled 438 feet to right field at 113.6 mph off the bat. He'd love to keep traveling to Boston.

BOSTON – Colton Cowser is playing left field again tonight to close out the series against the Red Sox, putting Austin Hays on the bench for the third game in a row and fourth out of six.

Cowser made two impressive catches last night in the eighth inning, slamming against the Green Monster and holding onto the ball while the Orioles protected a 7-5 lead.

“Those were two huge plays in big spots,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “Those balls fall, stuff changes from bullpen usage to other things. I’m excited about the way Colton Cowser is playing right now, just all around. The way he’s playing defense, the at-bats he’s given us, the speed on the bases, everything. He had a really nice game last night.

The Orioles face two right-handers in the weekend series against the Brewers at Camden Yards, which could limit Hays to starting against former teammate DL Hall on Saturday. But Hyde didn’t describe the left field arrangement as a strict platoon.

“Austin’s going to get back in there,” he said. “I think we’re just going to see how it goes, honestly. I like the way Colton’s playing right now, and with Cedric (Mullins) and (Anthony) Santander, we have a lot of really good problems right now. We have four guys on the bench that I wish could be out there, and that’s going to be on a nightly basis.”

During my postgame show on WBAL Radio last night, a caller said the Orioles win showed they are resilient and can overcome adversity. Well, they indeed did do that in a 7-5 win over the Boston Red Sox.

They are now 7-4 overall, 3-2 on this road trip and won another series, and can sweep it tonight behind Grayson Rodriguez (2-0, 2.19 ERA) at Fenway Park.

Jordan Westburg has hit two homers this year - one was a walk-off at Camden Yards and last night it was a go-ahead homer in the top of the seventh. With his club down 5-4 and two men on, he blasted a two-out shot out to the left of center. It was a ball he hit 111.2 mph and drove it 432 feet. It turned a one-run deficit into a 7-5 lead which the Orioles would hold.

Westburg said he was just trying to keep the line moving when he got into one. 

“I just viewed all those situations as ways of our guys passing the bat back to the next guy, trying to string together innings, string together some runs, get back in the game,” he said. “It got up to me and I was kind of doing the same thing. I wasn’t trying to do too much. I was just trying to get the bat to the next guy in the lineup. And it just so happened that it went out."

BOSTON – They came out of the dugout one by one again today, walking up a red carpet and making a hard right along the third base line. The march of the Orioles. Introduced on another Opening Day, their third if we aren’t counting the first spring training game.

Corbin Burnes started that afternoon and again on March 28 at Camden Yards. He stood on the mound at Fenway Park, the only opportunity in his seven-year major league career, with the emotions from Red Sox fans overflowing after the club’s return from a three-city West Coast trip, the 2004 team reunion and tribute to late knuckleballer Tim Wakefield and wife Stacy.

Burnes retired two batters in the first inning, threw a curveball to Tyler O’Neill, heard the contact and walked onto the grass in front of that same mound. He wouldn’t pitch with an early lead, but it was coming.

One run wouldn’t be insurmountable for an Orioles offense that’s been noticeably small in the clutch.

O’Neill belted his league-leading sixth homer, but Burnes allowed only two hits and none after the first, and Colton Cowser drove in four runs in a 7-1 victory before an announced sellout crowd of 36,093.

BOSTON – Colton Cowser gets the start in left field this afternoon, when the Orioles begin a three-game series against the Red Sox. Austin Hays is on the bench against right-hander Brayan Bello.

Ramón Urías is starting at third base and Tony Kemp is at second. Jordan Westburg is one of the reserves.

Urías is 1-for-17 to start the season, but he’s a .359 hitter in 20 career games at Fenway Park. Per STATS, the only Orioles with a higher average here through 20 games are Ryan Flaherty (.388), Ron Hansen (.373) and Trey Mancini (.364). Urías is ahead of Hall of Famer Frank Robinson (.338).

Urias has hit .345 overall against the Red Sox in his career, second among active players behind Freddie Freeman’s .369 average (minimum 100 plate appearances), according to STATS.

Ryan O’Hearn is batting fourth today and serving as designated hitter.