When Tampa Bay Rays pitching coach Kyle Snyder reached out to Orioles pitching coach Drew French to talk about righty Zach Eflin it was a bit unusual. It happened not long after the July 26 deal that made Eflin an Oriole and sent three minor leaguers to the Rays.

Snyder was showing great friendship and support for a pitcher he had a wonderful relationship with in Tampa. Even though he would be helping a division rival, this was a case where a couple of personal relationships seemed to top wins and losses.

One was Snyder’s close relationship with Eflin. The other was his emerging friendship with French. That one all started in Florida during spring training in a unique way.

“I actually got connected with Kyle this spring,” French explained during the O's last homestand. “I was staying in Sarasota at the previous home of the Rays trainer Joe Benge (formerly with the Orioles). We talked about Kyle a lot, someone I respected from afar. So, later we got connected and talked several times during spring training.

“When the trade did go down, he did reach out and said I’ve got some info. It is really about respect for the transition of the player that we know what his routine looks like, what his side days are. Just kind of the in-between stuff. In the same division, there is usually not a ton of company secrets thrown out between us. But it was some general stuff that helped us know the player better. Kyle really helped with that.”

On this homestand against Washington and Boston that ends today, the Orioles won Wednesday and Thursday, allowing one run each game. But they have lost the other three games, allowing nine, 12 and five runs.

From April 24, 2023 to June 20, 2024, the Orioles went 22 straight series against American League East teams without losing one. That was the longest streak by a team against its own division without a series loss since divisions were introduced in 1969, according to Elias Sports Bureau.

But if the O's lose today to Boston, they will have lost three of their past five AL East series. 

Through June 20 this year, they were 6-0-2 in eight AL East series, going 19-7 in 26 games. Since then they went 1-2 at home versus New York, 3-1 versus Toronto, 1-2 at Toronto and 2-1 at Tampa Bay. And now they are 1-2 this series against the Red Sox. So they are 8-8 their past 16 division games.

That adds up to a 27-15 (.643) record and a mark of 8-2-2 in 12 division series pending the result of today's game.

When you ask Orioles manager Brandon Hyde how much he appreciates Ramón Urías for his dependability at a variety of times in a variety of roles this season, he reminds everyone this is not new.

“The last few years,” said Hyde.

“Ramón is the same guy, every single day," he said. "Whether he is playing or not playing. Whether he hasn’t played in three or four days or been in the lineup. He comes to the park super consistent. He’s always ready. Makes his defense important and gives you the best AB he’s got. He’s got sneaky power and loves to be out there.

“It’s important right now. Anything we can add to the bottom of the order and wrap that thing around to the top of the order. Ramón has always been a super, steady player for us.”

When the Orioles optioned Coby Mayo back to Triple-A Thursday, that put Urías back in the lineup at third base, the position where he won a Gold Glove in 2022.

The Orioles have had a homestand with two kinds of ugly losses and two well-pitched, well-played wins. Tonight they play Game 3 of a four-game series with Boston and Game 5 of their six-game homestand.

The Orioles (72-51) are 2-2 on the homestand, but had fallen one game behind the New York Yankees (73-50) for the AL East lead through Friday. Boston (64-57) is in third place, eight games back of the division leaders.

The Orioles are now 1/2 game back of New York after thier 4-0 loss to Detroit this afternoon as they were held to four hits in falling to 73-51. The O's can tie for first with a win tonight.

The Orioles beat the Red Sox 5-1 Thursday to open this series, as Zach Eflin and four relievers teamed on a seven-hitter with 10 strikeouts. But the O’s staff allowed 14 hits and four homers in last night’s 12-10 loss.

Boston hit four doubles, and added those four homers and scored two or more runs in four different innings. It was the third-most runs the Orioles have allowed in a game this season. They lost 19-8 at Oakland July 6 and 14-11 at Houston June 21.

To say the least, the Orioles have been inconsistent over recent weeks and maybe even going back further than that.

It has been seen big time on this homestand, which started Tuesday with the O's getting blown out 9-3 by the Nationals. Then they put together solid starts by Dean Kremer and Zach Eflin and won back-to-back by 4-1 and 5-1.

But the Orioles have not won three in a row since July 14-20 around the All-Star break. They have now had five chances to win three in a row since then but are 0-5 in those games.

Friday night they lost 12-10 as Boston evened the four-game series at a win each.

It was surely surprising, even stunning, to see Corbin Burnes allow a career-high eight runs on 10 hits over four innings. In two earlier starts this year versus Boston he had allowed one run in 14 innings as the Red Sox went 5-for-47 (.106) at bat. Last night Boston was 10-for-22 (.455) with three doubles and two homers.

For the Orioles recently, the three-game win streak has been elusive. They last won three straight from July 14-20 when they ended the first half by beating the Yankees and started the second half with two in a row over the Rangers.

Since then the Orioles have won back-to-back games four times, but each time lost the next game. 

But after beating Washington 4-1 Wednesday and Boston 5-1 last night, the O's with a victory tonight will have a three-game win streak. Their last four-game streak was June 26-30.

Right-hander Zach Eflin allowed five hits and one run over six innings last night, and the Baltimore bullpen pitched three scoreless as the Orioles improved to 2-1 on this six-game homestand against the Nats and Red Sox.

The Orioles have allowed two runs or fewer in two straight games for the first time since July 2-3 at Seattle, when they gave up zero and one run.

Birdland is wishing and hoping that the Orioles can get on a strong roll the rest of this season. With last night's 5-1 win over Boston, they are 72-50 and now it's a 40-game sprint to the finish to win the American League East.

Looking for their first seasons with back-to-back AL East championships since 1973 and 1974, the defending division champion Orioles are now tied once again at the top with the Yankees who did not play last night.

If the division winner were determined only by division games, the Orioles would be in great shape.

They are well ahead of New York in those standings. Here is how the standings would look this morning if we counted only AL East games this season.

.675 - Orioles (27-13)

The Orioles who have lost only two American League East series this year - one to the Yankees, one to the Blue Jays - get back into division play tonight when they host Boston to start a four-game series at Oriole Park.

The Orioles (71-50) and the third-place Red Sox (63-56) are the only two clubs in the division that have winning records in 2024 in AL East games.

.667 - Orioles (26-13)
.519 - Boston (14-13)
.489 - New York (22-23)
.425 - Tampa Bay (17-23)
.415 - Toronto (17-24)

The Orioles are 8-2-2 this season in 12 AL East series. They are 18-2-6 their past 26 division series dating to early last April.

The Birds are 5-1 this season versus Boston, sweeping three in Boston from April 9-11 and going 2-1 at home May 27-29. The O's in this series have a chance to win each of their first three series against Boston in a season for the first time since 1976.

O’s outfielder Colton Cowser has been a Coby Mayo teammate in the majors and minors. They spent a lot of time together on the Triple-A roster. But today, less than 24 hours he picked up his first MLB hit, Mayo was optioned back to Norfolk.

He went 1-for-17 with the Orioles, getting his only hit in the fifth inning last night. He hit a 1-0 slider from Washington lefty DJ Herz for a single into left field. He walked and scored two innings later.

It was his sixth big league game and it was the second time he had reached base twice and he scored his second MLB run.

He leaves to go back to Triple-A, where he was batting .301 with an OPS of .961 and 20 homers over 77 games.

With the Orioles, Mayo hit .059 and fanned 10 times.

If it seems like the Orioles are stealing fewer bases recently, they are. In the month of July they had both their fewest number of steals in a single month this season with 10 and also their most caught stealing's with seven.

The Orioles by month this year with steals:

* Got 23-of-26 (.885) in April.

* Got 15-of-21 (.714) in May.

* Got 20-of-24 (.833) in June.

The Orioles and Nationals will meet for the fourth and final time this year tonight at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. After losing to the Nats 9-3 last night, the O's are 0-1 in this two-game series and 1-2 in the four-game season series.

A win tonight will split this series and the four-game season set. The Orioles have not lost a season series to the Nationals since 2018.

These teams have been playing since 2006 and the Orioles are 56-41 all-time versus the Nats and 10-2-6 in season series.

The Orioles lost the 2018 season series, going 1-5. Then they went 2-2 in 2019, 4-2 in 2020, 3-3 in 2021, 3-1 in 2022 and 4-0 last season leading up to this year.

Even with last night's loss, the Orioles have won eight of their last 10 versus the Nats and manager Brandon Hyde is 17-10 against them.

As a rookie in 2019, Eloy Jiménez hit 31 homers, had an .828 OPS and finished fourth in voting for the American League Rookie of the Year. In the 2023 season he hit 18 longballs.

But this year he has just five in 275 plate appearances. His homer percentage of 1.8 – the percentage of all plate appearances that end in a homer is the lowest of his career. That percentage was 6.2 for him in 2019 and 2020.

The task for the O’s coaches could not be more obvious. Try to get this guy back to lifting the baseball. Even though he is currently hitting the ball hard often and driving some grounders through infields around baseball.

Coming into the Nats series Jiménez was 12-for-24 with the Orioles, but with two doubles and 10 singles. He struck out as a pinch-hitter last night.

O’s skipper Brandon Hyde said the process to try and get Jiménez to drive baseballs is well underway.

The Orioles lost to the Rays on Sunday 2-1 as they failed to complete a three-game sweep, which would have been their sixth series sweep of the year.

Now the Orioles go from playing an American League East team – and they have had a lot of success within their division this year – to playing a National League East team. And they have a losing record this year versus NL squads.

The Orioles took two of three over the weekend from the Rays to be 8-2 against them in 2024. They are now are 26-13 versus AL East teams.

The Orioles are 14-18 versus NL teams and they lost their past three series against the NL, going 0-3 versus the Cubs and 1-2 each against the Marlins and Padres. The Orioles are 4-6-1 this season in series against the NL clubs.

Tonight the Orioles host the Nationals to start a two-game series and six-game homestand. The Red Sox come to town on Thursday night.

I don’t know if O’s outfielder Colton Cowser enjoys riding roller coasters, but his 2024 season has been like a ride on a coaster.

A few big ups and downs.

When you add the ups and downs together, he has played in 111 games for the club this year batting .250/.328/.460/.788 with 17 doubles, a triple, 18 homers and 54 RBIs.

Cowser leads all MLB rookies with the 18 homers. He hit two in the last four games of the O’s road trip and has hit four over his past 13 games.

Cowser’s slugging percentage is 19^th best in the American League and he ranks 22^nd-best in OPS.

When the O’s lose, as they did yesterday, and I host a postgame radio show, as I did yesterday on WBAL Radio, I can usually guess what will stir up Birdland.

This one was easy.

Why did skipper Brandon Hyde take out right-hander Albert Suárez when he had a shutout through 6 2/3 innings? Suarez was at 94 pitches, three off his season-high, but he was rolling and the bottom of the order was coming up.

Sure, I could see him staying with Suárez there. But even if he gets that last out, the O’s are headed to the bullpen in the eighth with no one on base – the same move they made going for Cionel Perez yesterday with two down in the Tampa Bay seventh. He and Craig Kimbrel didn’t get the job done. Plus, the O’s scored just one run.

Fans were disappointed Suárez didn’t get a win there and stay longer in the game and I get that. But a bullpen that wasn’t going to use Yennier Cano and Seranthony Dominguez after they had pitched back-to-back, needed to put up zeros and could not do it.

The Orioles will go for a series sweep and a season sweep at The Trop today as they try to go 7-0 this year on the road versus the Rays.

With wins by 4-1 and 7-5 the last two days, the O's can complete their sixth sweep of the year today of three or four games. The Orioles have been swept three in a row three times this year in St. Louis and Houston and then at home versus the Cubs.

The O's have three-game sweeps in Boston, against the Twins and in Cincinnati. They have four-game sweeps in Chicago against the White Sox and in Tampa Bay.

They have gone 6-0 this year at The Trop by a combined 36-13 score. They have out-homered the Rays 13-4 at The Trop. Baltimore pitchers have an ERA of 1.67 in the six games, allowing a batting average of .174 with OPS of .493. Baltimore batters have hit .298/.347/.553/.900 at The Trop in those six games.

For the year, the Orioles are 8-1 against the Rays and they have won 16 of the last 21 games between the teams. 

Of the six Orioles that joined the team during the deals leading up to the trade deadline, we can pretty much say that four of them are doing well thus far. One is trending up and one is trying to stay out of O’s fans' doghouse.

The struggling new Oriole is obviously lefty reliever Gregory Soto. In his first four O’s appearances, he gave up nine hits, eight runs, one homer and three walks in just 2 1/3 innings. He allowed nine hits in 15 at-bats with an ERA of 30.86.

But the Orioles are obviously not going to bail on him after four outings. Soto was an All-Star in both 2021 and 2022 with Detroit and had a 48 percent whiff rate on his slider when they acquired him. The O’s need to get that pitch going to complement his high-90s fastball.

The O’s acquired Eloy Jiménez from the White Sox and some fans wondered why with his injury history and .642 OPS this year. But he came as a player that had produced a .790 career OPS and a Silver Slugger Award in 2020.

Then Jiménez went 11-for-21 through Friday night, batting .524 with an OPS of 1.143. He did not play in Saturday's win, so he maintains those lofty stats heading into today as an Oriole.

After right-hander Zach Eflin pitched the Orioles past the Rays with a 4-1 win Friday night, the O's will look for another victory tonight. If they get it they will have another American League East series win.

Colton Cowser led off Friday's affair with his 18th homer in the first. Cowser has homered in back-to-back games and he's hit four longballs his last 11 games. Cedric Mullins hit the O's second solo shot of the night, his 12th in the sixth inning. 

The Orioles are 7-1 this season against the Rays and 5-0 at the Trop where they have outscored the Tampa 29-8. Baltimore is 15-5 its last 20 games against Tampa Bay and 24-13 in the last 37.

The O's are now 25-12 versus AL East opponents and 13-5 in AL East road games.

The Orioles send ace righty Corbin Burnes (12-4, 2.63 ERA) to the mound tonight in Game 2 of this three-game series.

If it seems like the Orioles don’t issue many intentional walks, they don’t and the stats back that up.

Heading into the Tampa Bay series, the O’s pitchers have issued just seven intentional walks this season. Only three American League teams issued less, five by New York, four by Cleveland and two by Houston. Only six major league clubs have issued less than the O’s in 2024.

Oakland pitchers lead the AL with 26 intentional walks with Boston next at 22, Toronto 21 and Texas 20.

The O’s philosophy seems to be pitch the big boppers carefully and work the edges of and off the plate. And if you walk him you walk him.

During the Toronto series, I asked manager Brandon Hyde about a specific instance during Wednesday’s game with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. but also in general how the club handles such situations when a big hitter is up.

The Orioles begin a three-game weekend series tonight in St. Petersburg, Fla. versus the Tampa Bay Rays. They do so with the memory of a four-game sweep at the Trop the last time they were there.

The O's and Yankees are both 68-48 beginning play tonight after both lost last night. While the O's play the Rays this weekend, the Yankees will host the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers. The Yankees have won five straight home series over the Rangers. 

Perhaps the ninth-inning rally last night gives the O's some momentum as a new series begins. They entered the last inning at Rogers Centre down 7-2 but scored four runs to pull within one. Jackson Holliday scored one with an RBI grounder, Cedric Mullins doubled in a run and Colton Cowser scored two with a single to right field.

But the rally ended there and the O's lost an American League East series for just the second time this season. They are now 7-2-2 in 11 division series. 

Cowser had homered earlier and he drove in four runs to tie his season high for the third time. Cowser has hit safely in 18 of his last 20 games since July 19, batting .355/.419/.592/1.011 with three doubles, five homers and 19 RBIs.