Ryan Mountcastle is out of the Orioles lineup tonight after leaving last night’s game in the ninth inning with wrist soreness.

Ryan O’Hearn is playing first base and Adley Rutschman is the designated hitter and batting second.

The Orioles began the day 1 ½ games behind the Yankees in the division race and they’re counting on rookie Cade Povich, making his 10^th major league start, to give them length before turning to the bullpen.

Povich lowered his ERA to 5.77 by holding the Red Sox to two runs over a career-high 6 1/3 innings in his last start. He was optioned later that night but returned with Zach Eflin on the injured list.

Left-hander Keegan Akin was reinstated from the paternity list and the Orioles optioned lefty Nick Vespi, who tossed a scoreless inning last night.

TORONTO – The kid did it again. Jackson Holliday hit yet another homer off the Toronto Blue Jays and this one was huge.

With the Orioles down 3-2 in the seventh, Holliday connected on a two-run shot – his fourth in seven games since rejoining the club – and the O’s had a 4-3 lead.

Anthony Santander provided insurance, with a solo homer in the eighth, his second home run of the game. It came not long after he made a leaping catch against the right-field wall in the seventh to rob Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The robbery came with a man on second and two outs, which preserved the 4-3 lead.

The O’s bullpen got the outs late to make it stand up as the Orioles beat the Toronto Blue Jays 7-3 to even this three-game series.

They improved to 68-47 and are 10-9 since the All-Star break. The Orioles are 24-11 in AL East games and 12-4 in division road games.

Hidden within the madness of the July 30 trade deadline, with its aggressive roster churn that resembled a tidal wave, was the Orioles' decision to recall Triple-A Norfolk catcher Blake Hunt. He made the trip from Charlotte to Baltimore in case backup James McCann went on the 10-day injured list. And the news barely created a ripple.

However, it was a wise move considering that McCann suffered multiple nasal fractures from a fastball to his face, a horrific scene that usually takes a player off the active roster and dumps him into a hospital bed.

McCann isn’t your typical player. He wears a protective mask when he bats. He gets his starts behind the plate. And Hunt, optioned the following day, gets to stick around on the taxi squad – the role usually occupied by David Bañuelos this season.

The team boarded its charter to Toronto after Sunday’s game at Progressive Field, but McCann hopped on a Southwest flight back to Baltimore to receive more medical attention on his nose. He prefers the exit row, according to industry sources with direct knowledge of his seating.

Major league field coordinator Tim Cossins also works as the Orioles' catching instructor. He played the position at the University of Oklahoma, in the minors with three organizations and in independent ball. He can relate to the abuse that the body takes, including the foul ball Sunday that nailed Adley Rutschman in the groin area, causing an entire ballpark to grimace.

CLEVELAND - Ryan Mountcastle doesn’t feel old. He’s just a product of his environment.

Mountcastle at age 27 is the respected elder of the Orioles redesigned infield. He scans the diamond and sees 20-year-old second baseman Jackson Holliday, 23-year-old shortstop Gunnar Henderson and 22-year-old third baseman Coby Mayo. Muscles begin to ache and he fights the urge to drive with his blinker on or write a check at the grocery store.

“It’s pretty crazy,” Mountcastle said. “For how young they are, how talented these kids are, it’s pretty remarkable. I guess being 27, the old guy in the infield, is pretty crazy.

“I guess I’m the mentor. I was coming up to bat (Friday) and I was like, ‘All right, you guys better drive papa in today.’”

I shared a STATS note Friday that the quartet was the fifth-youngest in Orioles history at 23 years and 169 days. The leaders are shortstop Ron Hansen (20), third baseman Brooks Robinson (21), second baseman Jerry Adair (21) and first baseman Bob Hale (24) at 22 years and 47 days on Sept. 28, 1958.

On the first full day after the trade deadline, Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias expressed optimism that his roster was “fortified,” his pitching staff improved and that his team has “as good a shot as anybody.”

This morning the O’s began the process of retooling their roster after the flurry of deadline trades for the stretch run and trying to turn a recent small stretch of winning into a larger one.

With three wins in their past four games scoring 29 runs, the O’s took the field amid the Baltimore sunshine today looking for yet another American League East series win.

Ryan Mountcastle’s two-run triple to right in the last of the first got the Orioles off to a good start. They built an early 3-0 lead.

The deadline deals opened the door for Jackson Holliday’s return to this team. He electrified the crowd today when his first major league homer was a grand slam in the last of the fifth. It opened an 8-3 lead and led to a Holliday curtain call. The crowd was on its feet and roaring for Holliday, who went 2-for-34 with the Orioles in 10 April games.

As Corbin Burnes walked to the mound tonight to begin his warmups, the Orioles were dismantling their roster at the trade deadline. He didn’t seem to notice.

A game that could determine whether the club stayed in first place or slipped into second became oddly secondary to the news.

As time passed, the importance of the outcome came back into focus. Burnes remains the undisputed ace, notching his 18^th quality start in a 6-2 victory over the Blue Jays before an announced crowd of 21,710 at Camden Yards.

Anthony Santander belted his 31^st home run, a solo shot onto the top of the grounds crew shed in the fifth, Ramón Urías homered and had an RBI single and infield hit while unsure how the next few days will impact his status, and the Orioles improved to 64-44. They remain a half-game ahead of the Yankees.

Burnes was charged with two runs and four hits with three walks and seven strikeouts over 6 2/3 innings. Cionel Pérez let an inherited runner score in the seventh.

The Orioles announced today’s trade, with second baseman Connor Norby and outfielder Kyle Stowers going to the Marlins for starting pitcher Trevor Rogers.

Rogers posted a 4.53 ERA and 1.528 WHIP this season in 21 games but has a 3.32 ERA in his last eight starts. He's under team control through 2026.

“It’s a left-handed starter,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “I haven’t talked with Mike (Elias) much about it at this point just because he’s still working really hard and it happened not that long ago, but from what I do know, he’s a guy that’s had nine or 10 really good starts his last times out, and always looking for starting pitching and hopefully he can help us down the stretch.”

Hyde isn’t ready to discuss his rotation or bullpen until the 6 p.m. deadline. He kept reminding the media about it.

Albert Suárez could shift to the 'pen with the rotation filled by Rogers, Corbin Burnes, Grayson Rodriguez, Zach Eflin and Dean Kremer. Triple-A Norfolk pitchers Cade Povich and Chayce McDermott could be used in relief down the road.

Orioles rookie Heston Kjerstad was a part of the Triple-A Norfolk team last year that ended up winning the Triple-A championship. He was with the Orioles when the Tides won that title in late September, but the lineup that night for the Tides included infielder Connor Norby and outfielder Kyle Stowers, who were traded today to the Marlins for lefty pitcher Trevor Rogers.

That lineup also included Jackson Holliday, Colton Cowser, Coby Mayo and Joey Ortiz.

It's easy to see how that team won a title.

Today Kjerstad is still an Oriole, but the other two are not.

“Norby and Stowers have been awesome. Not only great friends to me but great baseball players,” Kjerstad said this afternoon in the Baltimore clubhouse. “They’re going to go on and have great big league careers. They’ve been fun to watch play.

The increasingly unusual nature of baseball’s trade deadline, where teams can behave like buyers and sellers depending on which direction the wind blows, sets up the Orioles to do what used to be unthinkable. Shaking up a first-place roster like it’s a snow globe.

The club will undergo changes by Tuesday evening, but just how drastic is the mystery. Flurries or a blizzard?

Austin Hays is gone in a swap of players on the major league rosters. That didn’t used to be a common maneuver, two contenders engaging in this sort of activity. The Orioles reportedly are willing to move Cedric Mullins and Ryan Mountcastle in their ongoing pursuit of pitching and perhaps a right-handed bat.

Timing is everything, of course, and they played huge roles in yesterday’s 8-6 win. Mullins had a two-run double to give him six RBIs in his last four at-bats, and he made a spectacular catch to rob Manny Machado in the eighth. Mountcastle drove in four runs and scooped a Gunnar Henderson ball out of the dirt.

Maybe it became less likely that Mullins would be dealt after Hays went to the Phillies, but that’s just more speculation. And would parting with Mullins open the door for Kyle Stowers, a left-handed hitter like Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad? It didn’t seem possible for them to co-exist with the Orioles until recently.

The crowd erupted today in the top of the first inning when Padres leadoff hitter Luis Arraez lifted a popup that Gunnar Henderson ran down in foul territory. No collision or dropped ball. Fans hadn’t forgotten yesterday’s blunder.

Henderson ranged past second base in the second inning and made a sprawling stop and throw to retire David Peralta. The ovation this time was louder. Henderson and Jordan Westburg caught line drives, the former from Kyle Higashioka at 107.1 mph, and James McCann threw out Ha-Seong Kim trying to steal third base in the third.

The best was saved for last, with Cedric Mullins sprinting to the center field track and making a leaping grab of Manny Machado’s fly ball at full speed before crashing into the fence at the 410 foot sign. The palm of his glove faced upward, much like the mood of a team that has been battling frustration as well as opponents.

The Orioles didn’t completely fix their defense. Henderson sailed and bounced throws past Ryan Mountcastle, giving the shortstop five errors in four games. They didn’t completely solve their offensive issues, doing all of their scoring in two innings. And the pitching turned a comfortable lead into the slimmest of margins.

There’s more work to be done, but they accepted the result with smiles, formed the congratulatory handshake line and chose which music to blast.  

MIAMI – In desperate need of a win today in the series and road trip finale at Miami, the Orioles hit a bunch of early homers and watched ace right-hander Corbin Burnes deal on the mound for most of his day.

It was a combination that has worked before and looked like it would again today.

It looked like it could and would be easy, but it was not.

The O's let leads of 6-0 in the fourth, 6-1 in the eighth and 6-3 in the ninth get away. The game moved to the 10th inning.

O's closer Craig Kimbrel allowed a one-out infield single and walked the next two hitters to load the bases in the home ninth with the O's up three. Then shortstop Gunnar Henderson bobbled a grounder off the bat of Jazz Chisholm Jr. and it was 6-4. A sac fly by Xavier Edwards made it 6-5 and when Josh Bell singled to right, the game was tied. Yennier Cano replaced Kimbrel and recorded a strikeout to deny Miami a walk-off win and send the game to the 10th.

ARLINGTON, Texas – The next time that the Orioles begin the second half of their season in the same city that hosted the All-Star Game, please let it be Honolulu or Rome. I’d take New York or Chicago right now.

How much longer until Las Vegas?

Pausing at the break allows teams and the media to regroup. We still find the Orioles with a one-game lead over the Yankees. They didn’t lose ground after Sunday.

Other realities remain untouched, like a pair of five-game losing streaks since leaving the Bronx, and how they needed two Yankees blunders with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning Sunday to eek out a 6-5 win.

Going 2-for-39 with runners in scoring position on the last homestand is hard to comprehend. Saw it happen and still don’t fully grasp it.

Asked this morning what the Orioles must do after the break to recapture the success that defined previous months, third base coach Tony Mansolino replied, “I think just get back to being who we are.”

That would be a team producing quality at-bats, hitting in the clutch and scoring runs in bunches. That gets more out of the rotation than reasonably expected with so many injuries, as well as important outs from the bullpen.

Be the team that swept the Rays in four games and won consecutive series against the Braves, Phillies and Yankees. Be those 2024 Orioles.

They sort of got there today. They weren't going to quibble.

After imploding in gut-wrenching fashion in the ninth, the Orioles watched the Yankees misplay two balls with two outs in the bottom of the inning. Charity began at home.

Ryan Mountcastle’s fly ball with two outs in the fourth inning fell in front of charging Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki for a soft double. The Orioles had their first baserunner. They got a body in scoring position.

Newly appointed All-Star Anthony Santander swung at the next pitch and grounded out to extend the club’s scoreless streak to 19 innings and its struggles with RISP to whatever level is beyond frustrating.

Albert Suárez tried to keep the game close, but a four-run deficit in the fifth felt insurmountable with the offense stuck in neutral.

Cubs left-hander Justin Steele tossed seven scoreless innings on only 70 pitches and the Orioles lost 8-0 before an announced crowd of 22,685 at Camden Yards, the first time they were swept at home since Aug. 27-29, 2021 against the Rays.

The Orioles were outscored 21-2 in the series and haven’t plated a run in their last 24 innings. They were shut out in back-to-back games for the first time in three years. And they’ve got the Yankees this weekend.

SEATTLE - For the first time in 10 years, the Orioles will have multiple players starting in the All-Star Game.

The 2014 club won the division. The 2024 Orioles are in first place and eyeing a World Series title.

Gunnar Henderson won the American League shortstop balloting over the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. by receiving 65 percent of the votes. Catcher Adley Rutschman finished ahead of Kansas City’s Salvador Perez with 70 percent.

Henderson’s 26 home runs and 6.2 WAR rank second in the majors and he’s first in runs scored with 74. He’s batting .288/.383/.600 with 17 doubles, four triples, 58 RBIs and 46 walks in 84 games. He’s also stolen 13 bases in 14 attempts.

"I'm very humbled and blessed to be the starter. It's awesome being able to be do this my second full year," Henderson said.

SEATTLE – Ryan Mountcastle is taking ground balls at first base during batting practice and might be available to play tonight.

Mountcastle hasn’t been in the lineup for the past three games.

“He’s still a little bit under the weather,” said manager Brandon Hyde.

“Hopefully he feels well enough to come off the bench and hopefully feeling a little bit better every day.”

Ryan O'Hearn gets another start at first base, which puts Heston Kjerstad in the designated hitter spot against Mariners right-hander George Kirby.

SEATTLE – Gunnar Henderson confirmed last night on ESPN that he’s participating in the Home Run Derby on July 15 in Arlington, Texas. Now he’s waiting to learn whether he’s starting at shortstop for the American League.

His chances look pretty good.

Henderson has received 67 percent of the votes in the Phase 2 update to maintain his lead over the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr.

Balloting concludes at noon Wednesday, with starters announced at 7 p.m. on ESPN. Complete rosters will be shared on Sunday.

Adley Rutschman also is lined up to start. He’s received 72 percent of the votes to lead Kansas City’s Salvador Perez, an eight-time All-Star.

Austin Hays is in the Orioles lineup tonight for the first time since Tuesday. His knee soreness has dissipated and the Rangers are starting left-hander Andrew Heaney. It’s time for him to play.

Left field is back in Hays’ possession.

Ryan Mountcastle is on the bench, where he also began last night’s game before pinch-hitting. An explanation will come later.

Heston Kjerstad, who hit a grand slam last night, is the designated hitter while Ryan O’Hearn plays first base. Jordan Westburg is the cleanup hitter. Colton Cowser is in center field and batting ninth.

Gunnar Henderson’s on-base streak has reached 36 games. He’s leading off against a left-hander, with Adley Rutschman batting second.

To reach the halfway point of their season tonight, the Orioles also drifted back to last October.

Hosting the Rangers brought inescapable reminders of the Division Series sweep. The abrupt finish after winning 101 games. The deathly silence inside the visiting clubhouse at Globe Life Field. Manager Brandon Hyde circling the room to offer hugs and to express his gratitude.

The Orioles don’t return to Arlington until the series that follows the break, though some players will arrive early for the All-Star Game. But seeing the Rangers again was like picking at a scab.

Though Hyde hadn’t talked to his players about it and noted how this was a regular season matchup in June, he added, “I think we’re going to remember. That feeling sat with us for a long time.”

Corbin Burnes wasn’t in the rotation for the playoffs. Texas wasn’t a third-place team. Heston Kjerstad was on the roster but didn’t receive an at-bat.

Six Orioles have advanced past Phase 1 of All-Star Game balloting.

Shortstop Gunnar Henderson, catcher Adley Rutschman and first baseman Ryan Mountcastle lead their respective positions. Third baseman Jordan Westburg moves on as the current runner-up to Cleveland’s José Ramírez, and Ryan OHearn jumped from fourth to second among designated hitters behind Houston’s Yordan Alvarez. Anthony Santander is fourth among outfielders.

Rutschman (2,791,952 votes) and Kansas City’s Salvador Perez (1,429,732) are the catching finalists. Henderson (2,664,120) is ahead of the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. (1,417,629), and Mountcastle (2,296,697) is ahead of Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (1,976,645).

With a fan election, Rutschman would join Matt Wieters (2014) and Terry Kennedy (1987) among Orioles catchers.

Mountcastle can become the first Orioles first baseman to draw a fan election since Chris Davis in 2013. Others to earn the honor include Boog Powell (1970-71) and Hall of Famer Eddie Murray (1985).