The Orioles didn’t play yesterday and got some good news. Colton Cowser had his injury rehab assignment transferred to Triple-A Norfolk, led off and played center field yesterday in Game 1 of a doubleheader after back-to-back rainouts, and finished with three doubles, an RBI and a run scored. Jordan Westburg began his rehab assignment, batted behind Cowser as the designated hitter and had an RBI single and walk.

Cowser is eligible to be reinstated from the 60-day IL today and he’s played in five games, the first four with High-A Aberdeen. The Orioles must decide whether that’s enough. Westburg was eligible on May 7, but the left hamstring hadn’t healed and his assignment was delayed.

Bringing back important players is a much-needed shot in the arm because the roster is riddled with holes. Ramón Laureano, Tyler O’Neill and Gary Sánchez will be next in some order. Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells are plowing through their bullpen progressions, making them expected contributors after the break.

The unfortunate development for the Orioles and their fans is the 19-36 record, 16-game separation from the first-place Yankees and 11-game separation in the Wild Card chase. Is it too late?

They lost two “winnable” games against the Cardinals, going a combined 4-for-31 with runners in scoring position, but the White Sox are in town this weekend.

Outfielder Colton Cowser and infielder Jordan Westburg couldn’t escape the rain last night at Triple-A Norfolk, where their rehab assignments remained on hold due to another postponement. Cowser got a head start with four games at High-A Aberdeen, but his injury dated further back with a fractured left thumb on March 30.

Westburg strained his left hamstring and hasn’t appeared in a game with the Orioles since April 26. His workouts and rehab assignment with Norfolk were delayed after he experienced a setback, but he’s in motion again.

Cowser is on the 60-day IL and eligible to be reinstated on Friday. Westburg may not be far behind. And that leaves the Orioles with some difficult but happily anticipated roster decisions.

The offense needs Cowser and Westburg to provide competitive at-bats and drive in runners in scoring position. The Orioles went 1-for-14 Tuesday night and are batting .208 in these situations. They’ll take whatever boost the duo can give them, along with the defense.

No one could have anticipated that this is how the Orioles would construct their roster in late May. It’s rare that they carry three catchers before September, but keeping Adley Rutschman off the concussion injured list and Gary Sánchez’s wrist inflammation have brought Maverick Handley and Chadwick Tromp into the clubhouse. Emmanual Rivera missed a big chunk of spring training with a sore shoulder but he’s making starts at the infield corners. Dylan Carlson is an extra outfielder with three minor league options who has left the shuttle parked while Tyler O’Neill is on the IL with a left shoulder impingement.

Left-hander Cade Povich doesn’t know whether he’s pitching for his spot in the Orioles rotation. Trevor Rogers can be recalled from Triple-A Norfolk at any time after serving as the 27^th man in Saturday’s doubleheader in Boston and tossing 6 1/3 scoreless innings with two hits in Game 2. Zach Eflin, Dean Kremer and Charlie Morton are confirmed for the weekend series against the White Sox.

Having off-days Thursday and Monday gives interim manager Tony Mansolino and his staff the freedom to bump, skip or just stay in turn.

Povich can look like he won’t budge, as he did tonight in the first three innings, but the immovable object got knocked around after that in the Orioles’ 6-4 loss to the Cardinals before an announced crowd of 14,491 at Camden Yards.

A two-run fourth and three-run fifth spun the game in the Cardinals’ favor. The Orioles left 10 runners on base and lost their 12^th series. Their record is 19-36.

Povich allowed five runs and eight hits in 4 2/3 innings, walking three batters and tying his season high with nine strikeouts. He struck out the side in the third inning to give him six - on three fastballs, a sinker, curveball and sweeper. Lars Nootbaar led off the game with a single and the Cardinals didn’t have another hit until Masyn Winn’s leadoff single in the fourth.

Orioles pitcher Kyle Bradish is halfway through his bullpen progression and fully expecting to be reinstated from the 60-day injured list by August.

Bradish threw a 35-pitch side session on Monday, used everything in his arsenal and reported that he’s “feeling really good.”

The Orioles want Bradish to begin throwing live batting practice at the beginning of July, followed by an injury rehab assignment in the minors. He hasn’t pitched for them since undergoing ligament-reconstructive surgery on his right elbow in June 2024.

Bradish made eight starts last season after receiving a platelet-rich plasma injection in his elbow in January, posting a 2.75 ERA and 1.068 WHIP in 39 1/3 innings. He shut out the Rays on one hit over six innings in his penultimate start and allowed two runs in five innings against the Phillies before the Orioles shut him down.

Standing at his locker this afternoon, Bradish explained why he’s confident in his chances of getting back into the rotation after the break.

The Orioles’ 2025 season is more than just a disappointment. It’s also a drip. A forecast calling for rain throughout the day and most of the night has threatened a sixth postponement and the third in a week, but the Orioles are hoping to squeeze in the game and preserve Thursday’s off-day.

The teams played in a steady shower last night, but the game went on uninterrupted. They have an open date on the schedule Thursday before the Cardinals fly to Texas. The Orioles host the White Sox over the weekend.

An April 11 game against the Blue Jays at Camden Yards was moved to July 29. The Orioles were swept in Detroit on April 26 and by the Twins on May 14. They split with the Red Sox Saturday in Boston after postponements on consecutive days in between a 19-5 loss. They could use a break in the weather.

If the Orioles play tonight, Adley Rutschman will serve as designated hitter and Cedric Mullins will start in center field. Rutschman left Sunday’s game in Boston after taking a foul ball off the mask. Mullins has sat out three of the last four games.

Mullins stayed on the bench last night in a 7-4 loss. Interim manager Tony Mansolino let catcher Chadwick Tromp bat to lead off the bottom of the ninth with Rutschman also unavailable.

Ryan O’Hearn will celebrate home runs and drink from the hydration station like anyone else. He loves barreling the baseball, rattling seats, slapping hands with teammates at home plate and in front of the dugout.

But if you want to see him really get excited about an at-bat, wait until a pitch runs in on his fists.

“Probably my favorite kind of hits are jam-shot singles to left field,” he said yesterday, “especially with two strikes.”

O’Hearn is delivering every possible variety this season. He lined three singles to the opposite field Monday afternoon against the Cardinals at 104.4 mph, 85.1 mph and 85.2 mph. All of them on sinkers. He went 3-for-3 with a home run and walk Sunday in Boston, pulling a slider to right field for a single, launching a four-seam fastball 396 feet at 103. 2 mph for his eighth homer, and driving a changeup to the fence in right-center for a double that became a Little League home run after two Red Sox’s throwing errors.

He circled the bases again last night but in legit fashion, belting a three-run homer that gave the Orioles a 4-3 lead in the fifth inning. A first-pitch 94 mph fastball from Andre Pallante cleared the center field fence at 405 feet with an exit velocity of 106.1 mph. Only Cedric Mullins (10) has hit more home runs than O’Hearn, who collected his ninth last night.

The managerial wheels were spinning inside Tony Mansolino’s head tonight in the first inning. The migraine didn’t set in until much later.

Tomoyuki Sugano escaped with only one run allowed against the Cardinals despite singles from four of the first five batters, but his opponent squeezed 32 pitches out of him. The count grew to 51 after the second, with Lars Nootbaar creeping halfway to the cycle with his two-run homer. Mansolino had to consider how the rest of the game would be covered if Sugano blew a chance to get deep into it.

Sugano gave up another single in the third as rain continued to fall, but he needed only six pitches to get back to the bench, and he retired the side in order on 11 in the fourth. Those early concerns were put to bed. The bigger worry was whether the Orioles could overcome the deficit.

They did after Ryan O’Hearn swatted a three-run homer in the fifth, but the Cardinals tied the game against Keegan Akin in the seventh and Nolan Arenado homered off Bryan Baker an inning later in a 7-4 victory over the Orioles before an announced crowd of 13,779 at Camden Yards.

Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker had back-to-back triples off Baker in the eighth on fly balls that the Orioles couldn’t track cleanly in wet conditions and with Cedric Mullins on the bench for the third time in four games. Heston Kjerstad failed to make a sliding grab on the track in right-center as Jorge Mateo approached the ball -  Statcast gave it a 95 percent catch probability - and Mateo stopped short of the center field fence and jumped too soon on Walker’s drive.

Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman appears to have avoided the seven-day concussion injured list.

Rutschman was scheduled to take batting practice outdoors if the rain stopped. The tarp is on the field but some players threw in the outfield before returning to the clubhouse.

Rutschman is out of the lineup again after taking a foul ball off his mask during Sunday’s game in Boston and leaving in the top of the fifth inning.

“You’ll see him on the field,” said interim manager Tony Mansolino, “and if all goes well, I think there’s a good chance we see him here pretty soon.”

Cedric Mullins is out of the lineup for the third time in four days and the reasoning isn’t as clear. The Orioles appear to be sitting him as a precaution and to freshen him after he went on the injured list twice last season with an adductor groin strain.

Cedric Mullins and Adley Rutschman remain out of the Orioles’ lineup tonight against the Cardinals.

Mullins hasn’t started in three of the last four games. Jorge Mateo is in center field.

Chadwick Tromp makes his first start behind the plate.

Dylan Carlson is in left field after homering yesterday for the second time in two games. His 107.6 mph exit velocity was the hardest-hit home run of his career.

Carlson is 5-for-12 over his last three games after going 1-for-22.

The Orioles have won three games in a row for the first time in 2025, which is cause for celebration.

You can break open the bubbly or watch me bust into the mailbag. One can lead to questionable behavior, the other is filled with questions that I attempt to answer in the latest sequel to the beloved 2008 original.

I don’t edit unless your grammar is as bad as the Cardinals’ infield defense yesterday. Also, my mailbag turns double plays and your mailbag turns left in a right-turn-only lane.

Here we go.

Was firing Brandon Hyde the right decision?
Well, that didn’t take long. How can we truly know? We aren’t armed with the exact reasoning beyond how the team has played below expectations since June 2024. We don’t really know who initiated it. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be David Rubenstein or Mike Elias. But does the front office and ownership think the 2025 season is salvageable and that’s why the firing came so quickly, or is it more about deciding that Hyde wasn’t going to be retained next season and there was no reason to wait? I’ll say that it’s unfair, but that’s typical. Life is unfair. Good people get let go on the reg. You can’t fire 26 players. Hyde didn’t lose the clubhouse. Not even close. He followed orders from above, consuming analytical data by the spoonful. He didn’t become a liability with his in-game decisions. His biggest sin, which ultimately cost him, was the failure to win. Period. That wasn’t an issue during the rebuild, but it became a job killer.

Dylan Carlson knew the drill. Slap hands with teammates, approach dugout steps and remove batting helmet, receive pirate hat, go directly to hydration station and chug. And it’s much better in a crowd.

Carlson is on an offensive tear, hitting a three-run homer today after an earlier single and stolen base. And Charlie Morton is on a mission to prove that he can still pitch at age 41.

It proved to be a nice combination, the power and perseverance.

The Orioles ran their winning streak to a season-high three games today with a 5-2 victory over the Cardinals before an announced crowd of 21,717 at Camden Yards. Their record improved to 19-34. The vibe also is changing.

It’s no coincidence that the rotation is healing some wounds. Trevor Rogers gave the Orioles 6 1/3 scoreless innings Saturday in Game 2 of a doubleheader, and Dean Kremer followed yesterday with 5 1/3. Morton carried a shutout bid into the fifth before Pedro Pagés hit a fly ball to left field that drifted into the seats for a two-run homer.

The Orioles have made the following roster moves:

• Selected the contract of C Chadwick Tromp from Triple-A Norfolk. He will wear No. 41.
• Designated UTL Cooper Hummel for assignment.

The Orioles’ 40-man roster currently has 39 players.

Cedric Mullins is out of the Orioles’ lineup today, with Dylan Carlson getting the start in center field.

Interim manager Tony Mansolino kept Mullins and Jackson Holliday on the bench Saturday in Game 2 and said, “Just over the course of the season, there’s little nick-nack things that kind of happen. We were doing the best we could to stay away from them.”

Mullins started Sunday.

Holliday is leading off today, followed by Ramón Urías as the designated hitter. Gunnar Henderson is third.

Ryan Mountcastle is batting cleanup, Ryan O’Hearn is in right field and batting fifth, and Heston Kjerstad is in left field and batting seventh.

The Orioles are back home today, trying to snap an eight-game losing streak at Camden Yards, after going a combined 3-4 in Milwaukee and Boston. They haven't posted a lineup against the Cardinals, but catcher Adley Rutschman apparently won't be in it.

Rutschman was nailed on the mask yesterday by Rafael Devers’ foul ball in the third inning and Maverick Handley pinch-hit for him in the fifth. Triple-A Norfolk catcher Chadwick Tromp is on the medical taxi squad.

Interim manager Tony Mansolino didn’t provide an update on Rutschman or specify whether the catcher is in concussion protocol.

Ryan Mountcastle is 9-for-18 with seven runs scored in four career games played on Memorial Day. He collected four hits in 2022.

Gunnar Henderson needs two more hits to reach 400. He’d join Manny Machado, Eddie Murray, Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripken Jr. and Boog Powell as Orioles to do it before age 24.

Yaramil Hiraldo was a non-roster invitee to Orioles spring training who didn’t pitch in an exhibition game. He was included in an early round of cuts on March 2, his name buried behind outfield prospects Enrique Bradfield Jr., Dylan Beavers and Jud Fabian and major league reliever Colin Selby.

One of them is with the club this week – the reliever who was out of affiliated ball since 2021, pitching in Mexico and the independent Atlantic League until the Orioles signed him on Oct. 31.

Hiraldo had his contract selected on Saturday when the Orioles designated veteran left-hander Cionel Pérez for assignment in a bold bullpen move. He posted a combined 2.45 ERA in 11 games between Triple-A Norfolk (six), High-A Aberdeen (three) and Double-A Chesapeake (two).

“I found out during a practice day and they told me I was gonna come up to Boston and be on the taxi squad,” Hiraldo said via interpreter Brandon Quinones. “They told me to just be ready. There’s a chance I could be on the roster, a chance I might not be on the roster. And sure enough, it happened. So I’m here now, I’m ready to go and ready to help the team.”

There are plenty of interesting success stories floating around baseball. Albert Suárez provided a doozy with the Orioles. Hiraldo received a paltry $2,500 bonus from the Diamondbacks during the international signing period in 2017-18, the 11^th lowest among 1,176 players, according to baseball journalist Francys Romero. His adjusted salary with the Orioles is $523,008, per Spotrac.

BOSTON – A prolonged series against the Red Sox subjected the Orioles to rain. Lots of rain. There were postponements and delays to start games or to interrupt them. The roster changed multiple times with contracts selected, a contract signed and a designation for assignment. The infielder who started in center field tumbled over the fence and landed in the home bullpen. The starting catcher had his mask rattled today by a vicious foul ball.

To come away with a split must have felt like a gift from the gods. Or maybe a sympathetic gesture.

Dylan Carlson and Ryan O’Hearn homered in support of Dean Kremer, who grinded through 5 1/3 scoreless innings, and the Orioles won 5-1 before an announced sellout crowd of 36,824 at Fenway Park. O’Hearn reached base four times and is batting .329 with a .956 OPS.

The Orioles went 3-for-4 on the trip and won yesterday for the fifth time in 21 games. They also won back-to-back games for only the third time and have held opponents to one run or fewer in consecutive games for the first time since Aug. 14-15, 2024. They’ll take an 18-34 record into the homestand that begins Monday afternoon against the Cardinals.

“The last two games were right where we should be," Kremer said. "It’s something to build off of, and all we can do is continue to move forward after that.”

BOSTON – Cooper Hummel exercised the opt-out clause in his contract with the Yankees shortly after midnight Wednesday, didn’t see a path back to the majors and was minutes away from agreeing to a minor league contract – one person described it as “pen to paper “ - when the Orioles called his agent.

Baseball can tug at a player’s emotions and pull him in many unexpected directions.

The Orioles signed Hummel to a one-year deal and brought him to Fenway Park for today’s game. They sought a corner outfielder with Colton Cowser, Tyler O’Neill and Ramón Laureano on the injured list.

“The last few days were kind of a whirlwind for me. I’m excited for this,” he said this morning.

Hummel, 30, has appeared in 66 games with the Diamondbacks, 10 with the Mariners and six with the Astros over the past three seasons. He’s played left and right field in the majors and also caught in 18, and he brings corner infield experience from the minors.

BOSTON – The Orioles made another roster move today, signing outfielder Cooper Hummel and designating infielder Terrin Vavra for assignment.

Hummel, 30, exercised the opt-out clause in his contract with the Yankees. He’s hit .159/.255/.275 in 82 major league games. He had eight doubles, three triples, three home runs and 17 RBIs in 66 games with the Diamondbacks in 2022, and appeared in 10 with the Mariners in 2023 and six with the Astros last summer.

Hummel, a switch-hitter, is a career .266/.403/.443 hitter in nine minor league seasons.

Vavra was DFA’d for the second time with the Orioles. His contract was selected yesterday while Ramón Laureano went on the 10-day injured list with a sprained left ankle.

The Orioles will try for a split of their rain-interrupted four-game series at Fenway Park today before boarding their flight home.

BOSTON – The Orioles used their 42^nd player last night when Trevor Rogers stepped on the mound to warm up for Game 2 of the doubleheader. They had Terrin Vavra on the bench and Yaramil Hiraldo in the bullpen. The number is fluid, the clubhouse attendants kept busy making nameplates for lockers.

Vavra and Hiraldo didn’t see any action unless there was some pushing and shoving at the post-game spread. But today brings new possibilities.

The team record for most players used is 62 in 2021. The Orioles needed 60 last season, 58 in 2022 and 2019, and 56 in 2018.

Vavra made it back to the majors yesterday to replace injured outfielder Ramón Laureano. He was on the taxi squad last year at the trade deadline but didn’t play. His last game with the Orioles was on May 31, 2023, before enduring multiple stints on the injured list, including a right labrum tear that required surgery, and a left groin strain.

Vavra could stay until Laureano is eligible to return on May 31, or until Colton Cowser is eligible the day before. Tyler O’Neill has a left shoulder impingement and won’t be ready on his return date, which is Monday.

BOSTON – The Orioles waited until after yesterday’s rainout to announce their Game 2 starter. They waited until after their Game 1 loss earlier today. Too many variables, including possible bullpen usage to cover innings.

Interim manager Tony Mansolino confirmed outside the visiting clubhouse that left-hander Trevor Rogers would make his 2025 debut. It proved to be a wise decision at a time when pretty much everything seems to be going against this team.

Rogers cruised into the seventh before leaving with two runners on base, one out and the game scoreless. He allowed two hits, walked none and struck out five before Andrew Kittredge replaced him, the move coming with Rogers at 87 pitches.

Kittredge stranded the runners and Ryan O’Hearn singled with two outs in the eighth to score Gunnar Henderson. Finally, a breakthrough. A reason to feel good again. Savor these moments in a season that would rather tease and torment.

Seranthony Domínguez stranded the two runners he inherited in the eighth, allowed a leadoff home run to Abraham Toro in the ninth and notched his first save in the Orioles’ 2-1 victory over the Red Sox before an announced crowd of 34,604 at Fenway Park.