Samuel Basallo hit his 14th career home run last night at age 21.

He’s still got some serious chasing to do in order to top Gunnar Henderson’s achievement of reaching 100 before the shortstop’s 25th birthday.

“It’s not a competition,” Basallo said, smiling, “but I mean, I want to get there fast.”

His two-run shot in the first inning ended an 11-game power outage and came after being out of the lineup for three straight, and the controversy over it that ensued. Manager Craig Albernaz talking in Toronto about the importance of playing through discomfort and then using Basallo twice as a pinch-hitter in the first three games of the Mariners series. The daily questions about it.

“What happened already happened,” Basallo said via interpreter Brandon Quinones, “and I’m just here to do what I need to do.”

Basallo had no interest in revisiting the situation when asked whether any tension existed with Albernaz.

“I don’t want to get into that, but it’s been fine,” he said politely in English. “We are a team right now, so we are just focused on winning and whatever happened, happened. You just have to keep going and keep winning games.”

The young catcher would rather talk about Henderson’s milestone.

“It’s good,” he said. “That’s a big accomplishment, doing it in the big leagues. That is really good. I’m happy for him and I hope he can keep doing that. That helps us to keep winning games, too.”

*The world is full of ironies and coincidences, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

A fan made a custom Orioles rug for Henderson about two years ago and presented one to the team last night.

Henderson said the man’s girlfriend got the home run ball.

“It was kind of a full circle moment being able to run into him, and then he obviously had a rug for the team,” Henderson said.

“It was super awesome that him and his girlfriend were gracious enough to give me that ball back.”

*The next Bark at Oriole Park will be held Sept. 3. Jackson Holliday should mark it on his calendar, if he hasn’t done so already.

Holliday has hit two of his three career grand slams with dogs in the stands. The other slam also was his first major league home run on July 31, 2024, and it landed on Eutaw Street.

Can’t repeat that one.

Holliday’s three slams are the most by any Orioles player 22 years old or younger. Henderson and Cal Ripken Jr. hit two.

Four players under 23 have hit grand slams this season, and Holliday is the only one in the American League.

*The Orioles and Padres don’t have much overlap with players in the history of the franchises.

Name the two players to appear in 300 or more games with both teams, and the three pitchers with 200 or more innings. Answer below.

*Henderson led the Orioles in walks last season with 62 over his 154 games played. Taylor Ward drew his 62nd walk last night in his 70th game.

Ken Singleton holds the single-season club record with 118 in 1975. Ward is gunning for it.

Ward ran the count full last night against Griffin Canning. Going into last night, Ward had seen 1,363 total pitches this season to rank second behind James Wood (1,369). Including last night, he’s seen 468 of those pitches with the count full, second to Mike Trout’s 485.

Ward has walked in five straight games, his second-longest streak after nine in a row earlier this season.

*The Orioles have been held to one run 17 times this season, but they’ve gone 71 games without being shut out.

Close doesn’t count.

This is their third-longest streak to begin a season after going 133 straight in 2007 and 77 in a row in 1978.

*Shane Baz allowed six hits in five innings last night, including Gavin Sheets’ run-scoring double in the first and Manny Machado’s leadoff double in the fifth.

Before last night, the 25 doubles allowed by Baz this season were the most in the majors. Former Oriole Tomoyuki Sugano, now with the Rockies, was next with 22.

Baz surrendered a career-high five doubles on April 21 in Kansas City. He’s allowed four or more this season in three of his 14 starts after surrendering four in three of his first 54 career starts.

Only four Orioles starters have allowed four-plus doubles four times in a season. Name them.

Never mind. Brad Bergesen did it in 2010, Mike Mussina in 2000 and 1996, Pat Rapp in 2000 and Scott Erickson in 1996.

*An off-day on Monday will be followed by a three-city West Coast trip, with the Orioles making stops in Seattle, Los Angeles and Anaheim. They don’t play another home game until June 26 against the Nationals.

Daunting? Not for Albernaz, who was the Giants’ bullpen coach and catching instructor from 2020-23.

“It’s different, different time zones for our guys,” Albernaz said. “Obviously, we have the off-day going into Seattle, which will help get everyone acclimated. And luckily we have, from the travel sense, the back-to-back LA series. So that lessons the travel load a little bit. But yeah, there will definitely be an acclimation period for everyone, but we have some good steps in place to get ahead of that.”

Answer: Manny Machado played in 860 games with the Orioles and appeared in his 1,034th last night with the Padres, and Roberto Alomar played in 412 with the Orioles and 448 with the Padres.

Pat Dobson pitched 550 2/3 innings with the Orioles and 251 with the Padres, Andrew Cashner pitched 249 1/3 and 608 2/3, and David Wells pitched 224 1/3 and 342 2/3.

The more you know …