Heston Kjerstad grabbed a bat to hit on the field yesterday afternoon but paused to satisfy a reporter’s request for a minute of his time. That’s exactly how much of it he could spare, doing so with the usual smile and polite nature.

Kjerstad would begin the game on the bench, hours after learning that he made Baseball America’s Minor League All-Star Team, along with shortstop Jackson Holliday and catcher Samuel Basallo. He delivered a pinch-hit, RBI double in the eighth inning. Three of his first six career hits have gone for extra bases.

The honors keep finding him, even in Baltimore.

“I spent the majority of the season down there, and you consider that I’ve only been up here a little bit,” he said. “Definitely a solid year, cool to be a part of that and everything. There’s a lot of O’s players on that list, too. It just shows the organization we’re in.

“It’s awesome to be up here and getting things rolling. It’s been awesome to be a part of this clubhouse so far.”

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde spent part of last night’s media session praising his hitters, saying it was the best offensive performance of the season beyond perhaps the first two games in Boston.

“I mean, who loves no punchouts?” he asked, referring to Chris Sale’s inability to record a strikeout in five innings. “I do.”

Red Sox manager Alex Cora expressed different feelings on the topic, on a night when his team’s dissatisfaction with home plate umpire Junior Valentine’s strike zone led to hitting coach Peter Fatse’s ejection in the sixth inning. Cora was tossed after the final out, which results in a fine from the league.

Sale struck out 11 batters in his previous start against the Twins, but the Orioles made contact on 40 of their 42 swings against him in a 5-4 win.

They didn’t have a batter strike out for the first time since Aug. 8, 2010 against the White Sox.

The Orioles' level of play has improved, no doubt, over the team that lost 110 games in 2021. That club won just 20 of 76 American League East division games (.263) last year and the current Orioles are 11-16 (.407) in the division.

They just completed a two-week run of games versus the AL East and went 7-8 against the Yankees, Rays, Yankees again and Red Sox. This run started with three straight losses at home to the Yankees and ended with a 7-5 stretch.

The Orioles have gone 4-9 versus the Yankees and 7-7 combined against the Rays and Red Sox, a year after going a combined 7-31 against those two clubs.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora threw the Orioles some props with reporters after Baltimore hammered his team 10-0 last night to win that series, three victories to two.

“Stuff-wise, they’re (pitching) really good,” Cora told reporters Monday night. “You see it. Everybody sees it. We saw it early in the season. … I'm not surprised, because that's how it started in Houston. It started with pitching.”

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