masn-baseballs-orioles.jpgManager Brandon Hyde is learning about his players and his club pretty much on a daily basis going back to the beginning of spring training. Or perhaps the January minicamp.
Last night showed exactly how they’re capable of handling adversity.
Coming off an embarrassing 15-3 loss to the Yankees, which featured seven home runs allowed and the pitching debut of infielder Hanser Alberto, the Orioles stormed past the Athletics 12-4 at Camden Yards and acted as though the shelling never…

Manager Brandon Hyde is learning about his players and his club pretty much on a daily basis going back to the beginning of spring training. Or perhaps the January minicamp.

Last night showed exactly how they’re capable of handling adversity.

Coming off an embarrassing 15-3 loss to the Yankees, which featured seven home runs allowed and the pitching debut of infielder Hanser Alberto, the Orioles stormed past the Athletics 12-4 at Camden Yards and acted as though the shelling never occurred.

“The sign of a good team is you didn’t even realize the way (Sunday) happened, the way the clubhouse was and having a tough loss like that,” Hyde said. “You didn’t notice it pregame. It was just like it was another day and we turned the page. Those guys did a great job with that.”

cashner-delivers-white-sidebar.jpg“Besides (Sunday), I thought we had a chance both nights to swing the game back in our favor against the Yankees and just didn’t get it done,” said starter Andrew Cashner, who earned his second win last night, “but I think there’s a lot of fight in this room, I think there’s a lot of guys that might surprise some people with some years that they might have this year.

“We’ve got a lot of speed, which I think changes the game. And the biggest thing is the defense. Defense wins games for sure.”

Cashner has noticed the uptick in the energy level.

“We have a different group this year, so I think it’s a lot of guys getting chances they might not have gotten, so there’s definitely energy there,” he said.

“I try to bring energy every day. (Nate) Karns brings energy every day, so right now we have a good energy level as a team. We don’t really take a loss too hard and we show up the next day expecting to win.”

The Orioles committed two errors last night, but after Alberto made a diving stop to his left and bounced a throw past Chris Davis and after Jesús Sucre‘s throw to second on a stolen base attempt took one small hop past Jonathan Villar.

“The whole team, we take pride in our defense and Hyder made it a big point that we’ve got to play good defense if we want to win,” said shortstop Richie Martin.

“We have to play good defense and pitch well if we want to have a chance. Offense is a different element where we scrape enough runs across and we play good defense and we pitch well we can hang up there and beat a lot of good teams.”

Martin was 2-for-23 before collecting three hits, including a triple.

“It feels good, obviously,” he said. “You know, baseball is weird. I try to stay even keel with each game that goes on, but I’m not going to let this get to my head or if I go 0-for-4 or 0-for-5, it doesn’t matter. You’ve just got to go out and be consistent and give good at-bats. That’s all that matters.

“I’m just glad we got the win. It was a good team effort. Thought we pitched well, played good defense. The offense broke out, which is a good sight, so just got to take it into (tonight).”

This Orioles team has to be able to manufacture runs, and speed has become a major element. Cedric Mullins tripled in his first two at-bats after being 2-for-22. Martin can fly. Villar is a threat to steal anytime he gets on base. Joey Rickard is a plus runner, though he doesn’t swipe many bags.

“It’s huge,” Mullins said. “We put a lot of pressure on their defense and make a lot of things happen. My first triple, we were able to put pressure on them to make a good throw. The ball got away and I was able to score.”

Mullins did more than drive in two runs with his first triple. He also scored on a throwing error to make it the whole way around the bases.

What thought crossed his mind as the ball got past third baseman Matt Chapman?

“Do I have enough to get home?” he said.

“My legs felt like they were about to give out. That was a long trip for me. But I was able to get in there safely.”

* John Means is making his fifth major league appearance tonight and his first start. The two starts in the Grapefruit League, while on the edges of the rotation competition, don’t count.

Means’ first three appearances this season came against the Yankees. His major league debut came against the Red Sox on Sept. 26, 2018 at Fenway Park.

He finally gets to venture outside the American League East.

Left-handers are 1-for-7 with three strikeouts against Means this season. Right-handers are 4-for-15 with a home run and six strikeouts.

Hyde said the Orioles would discuss the possibility of bringing in a fresh arm for the bullpen, the same conversation held after Sunday’s loss. He said the bullpen was “OK” after Jimmy Yacabonis threw 31 pitches, Mychal Givens 12 while escaping a bases-loaded jam and Karns 10.

It required heavy usage and Alberto’s debut on Sunday.

“We just don’t know what we’re going to get out of Means,” Hyde said. “It was nice to just use a few guys tonight. It was nice I got to get Givens out of there. But we’re going to go over kind of how we see (tonight).”

Left-hander Brett Anderson starts for the Athletics, which could push Davis to the bench with his hitless streak at 49 games and plate-appearance streak at 56 – one short of Tony Bernazard’s record for non-pitchers.

Maybe the splits keep Davis in the lineup. Left-handed hitters have slashed .306/.350/.407 against Anderson in his career.

Davis is 1-for-8 with three strikeouts against Anderson. Villar is 1-for-10 with three strikeouts.

Anderson is 2-0 with a 2.38 ERA in three starts this season, but he’s allowed 11 hits and walked six batters in 11 1/3 innings.