NORTH PORT, Fla. – Adley Rutschman has made the trip to CoolToday Park for today’s game against the Braves. He’s catching Dean Kremer.

Kremer is making his third start. He’s allowed three runs and six hits with three walks and five strikeouts in four innings.

Jordan Westburg is playing second base, Colton Cowser is in left field and Kyle Stowers is in right. Coby Mayo is the designated hitter.

Ryan McKenna is leading off and playing center field.

For the Orioles

SARASOTA, Fla. – Here is yet another reason to praise the Orioles organization: making more good decisions on their farm.

Last year, they took a minor league pitcher that had thrown a combined 44 2/3 innings out of the bullpen in the 2021 and 2022 minor league seasons and made him a starter.

They saw something and the move worked. Right-hander Alex Pham, mostly a reliever in college and exclusively a reliever in his first two pro seasons, had a huge year as a starter pitching at High-A Aberdeen and Double-A Bowie.

He went 3-5 with an ERA of 2.57. Over 112 innings he allowed 72 hits, posting a .182 average against and 1.02 WHIP. He recorded a 3.4 walk rate and 10.5 K per nine rate. He had 13.3 K per nine rate with Aberdeen, where he went 2-0 with a 1.54 ERA in May and was the South Atlantic League Pitcher of the Month.

Yep, this starting thing was indeed working out.

ATLANTA – The Orioles keep coming at you. To call them pesky is too polite. They are relentless and trying to prove to skeptics that they’re real.

Fall behind early, lose a lead, call the bullpen after another start stalls in the middle innings. Summon another rally, turn on the sprinklers in the dugout and keep riding the wave of wins. That’s how it’s worked for most of the season.

The doubters will point to a rotation with seven quality starts in 33 games, and to a bullpen that might not hold up under the burden. That’s the rain on the parade.

Kevin Pillar’s two-run pinch-hit homer off Danny Coulombe in the eighth inning gave the Braves a 5-4 win over the Orioles before an announced sellout crowd of 41,454 at Truist Park. Coulombe replaced Bryan Baker after Austin Riley’s leadoff double and Sean Murphy’s lineout.

On the verge of their 12^th comeback victory and eighth series win in a row, with a chance to go 23-10 and move 13 games above .500 for the first time since the conclusion of the 2016 season, the Orioles finally collapsed under pressure applied by the team with the National League’s best record.