After the arrival of Jordan Westburg to the majors this week, can outfielder Colton Cowser be too far behind? He could be in the on-deck circle at this point, putting up outstanding numbers this year at Triple-A while taking his plate discipline to a higher level.

Working against Cowser at the moment is the fact that the O’s outfield has been really good with a potential All-Star in Austin Hays, the return of Cedric Mullins, the recent power display of Anthony Santander and the solid play of Aaron Hicks. If they want Cowser to come up and step right in the lineup, this may not be the perfect time for that.

But after a slow start this year for Triple-A Norfolk – he was 3-for-30 at one point – his bat is now raking. Cowser had another good night last night in Norfolk's win, going 2-for-3 with a double, two walks, a run and an RBI.

For the year over 53 games, he is batting .328/.458/.534 with a .992 OPS, 10 doubles, a triple, nine homers, 49 runs and 37 RBIs. 

In addition to that, he has increased his walk rate from 10.5 to 18.3 this season and lowered his strikeout rate from 30.6 to 23.8.

Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman will learn tonight whether he’s the starting catcher for the American League in the 93^rd All-Star Game, played July 11 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle.

Rutschman and the Rangers’ Jonah Heim are the finalists in phase 2 of voting, which concludes today at noon. The announcement is set for 7 p.m. on ESPN.

The most recent update yesterday showed Heim leading with 52 percent of the votes. The gap narrowed.

Rutschman tried to block the media’s questions this week like a spiked curveball. He fielded three Tuesday afternoon, showing no emotion, and got back to preparing for the game.

The spotlight should be turned on the club, where his teammates can feel it, too. He’d rather not stand alone under it. That’s just the way he’s wired.

Kyle Gibson lasted only three innings in his previous start, the shortest of his Orioles career, in a 13-1 loss to Seattle. He threw 35 and 34 pitches in the last two frames and followed up tonight with a 30-pitch first.

And he was better than Luke Weaver for a while.

Rain didn’t slow tonight’s game. The teams did it.

The first inning lasted 38 minutes and featured 18 batters, 70 pitches and seven runs.  The Reds scored three in the top half and the Orioles answered with Ryan O’Hearn’s RBI single and Gunnar Henderson’s bases-loaded triple.

Just as storms blew past the last two nights, the offense suddenly went away after the Reds reclaimed the lead in the second. The Orioles didn’t score again and were held to one hit entering the eighth, and Buck Farmer retired the first two batters.

The choices are plentiful and create nice problems for Orioles manager Brandon Hyde.

His Gold Glove third baseman and Fielding Bible Award winning shortstop aren’t in tonight’s lineup. Instead, Ramón Urías and Jorge Mateo are in the dugout for the final game of the series against the Reds at Camden Yards.

The decision to option Joey Ortiz to make room for Jordan Westburg didn’t solve every roster issue.

Ortiz appeared in only four games this month and didn’t start after June 17. Westburg, meanwhile, is here to play.

Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t an even swap.

The latest Orioles lineup tonight, in a game that concludes the series against the Reds, has Gunnar Henderson playing shortstop and Jordan Westburg at third base.

Westburg has three hits in his first two major league games.

Adam Frazier is starting at second base tonight.

Jorge Mateo and Ramón Urías move to the bench.

Aaron Hicks is serving as the designated hitter. He batted .201 against right-handers with the Yankees in 2022 and 2023 but has posted a .276 average against them with the Orioles.

In the American League stats heading into last night’s games, he was still No. 1. The Orioles' Austin Hays was the American League’s leading hitter batting .319 and leading Bo Bichette at .318 by that narrow margin with Tampa Bay’s Yandy Diaz next at .316.

We know Hays will not make the All-Star team through the fan vote, as he has not advanced to the next phase of balloting. But he still could be selected to play for the American League on July 11 at Seattle.

“Would be a huge honor. It is just an accolade that is next to your name forever. That is something I’ll be able to tell my kids one day if that were something to happen. It would mean a lot to me, but we’ll see what happens,” said Hays earlier in this homestand.

Hays has been pretty relentless this season in his up-the-middle of the field approach. He told me during spring training he would work hard this year to use the whole field but starts with that gap-to-gap approach and felt he got away from that in the second-half of last year.

In 2022 he got off to a start like he has done now with a .834 OPS in late June and then it was just .626 in the second half. He was banged up a bit but stayed on the field without keeping up his early-season batting success.

The noise created by Jordan Westburg’s major league debut, in the pouring rain at Camden Yards, drowned out everything else. However, a stat from another infielder shouldn’t go ignored.

Jorge Mateo walked twice.

Not a big deal?

Mateo has played in 330 major league games, accumulated 1,004 plate appearances, and never drawn more than one walk except for Monday night.

“I’ve been trying to work on not chasing, trying to focus on hitting pitches that are in the zone, and trying to find pitches that I can do harder contact with,” he said yesterday via interpreter Brandon Quinones. “So, it’s just a matter of continuing to work on those things and trying not to swing at pitches outside the zone.”

It sure took a while – the game itself lasted two hours and 57 minutes and there were two rain delays totaling an hour and 59 minutes – but the Orioles won another series opener Monday night. On the occasion of Jordan Westburg’s major league debut they beat Cincinnati 10-3. They are now 18-8 in series-opening games and 8-5 when the opener is at home. 

Westburg went 1-for-4, and his bloop single in the fifth was his first big league hit. He also scored his first run and produced his first RBI and played solid defense at second base.

The Orioles had scored just 10 runs over the weekend in taking two of three from Seattle, and then got 10 in one night. They have scored 10 runs or more in a game six times this year.

Because they trailed 1-0 in the first inning, this was technically their 28^th comeback win of the year. When the game began the O’s and Reds were both at 27 comeback victories to tie for the major league lead. Even though the O’s were leading by the second inning and never trailed after that, last night's game is another comeback win officially on their record.

At 48-29 (.623) the Orioles moved to within four games of idle Tampa Bay for the American League East lead. They have the third best record in the majors, behind only Tampa Bay (54-27, .667) and Atlanta (51-27, .654).

Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg will play together in the same infield tonight as Orioles for the first time, with Henderson starting at third base and Westburg at second. But it won’t be nearly the first time they have shared an infield as pro players.

Not even close.

It has happened and often on the Baltimore farm. So, for Henderson to experience Westburg’s big league debut last night and see his good friend go through that was also special for the soon-to-be-22-year-old O’s infielder.

Henderson did not play in the O’s 10-3 win over Cincinnati, but had a pretty good view of Westburg’s night as he went 1-for-4 and got his first major league hit, run and RBI, all in the same game.

“That was really cool. And a pretty eventful night in a sense, yeah his debut, but also the rain delay and wait through all that. Sure, that was eventful in itself. But he went out there and just did what he always does and showed you that it’s more than enough. Let him keep doing that and he’ll continue to flourish,” Henderson said this afternoon.

As he played his first Major League game last night, making his long-awaited big league debut, Jordan Westburg entered an Orioles' clubhouse where he already has a strong comfort level.

He spent so much time with the Orioles in spring training and of course, has been teammates with many current Orioles during his 317 career games on the O’s farm since they selected him No. 30 overall out of Mississippi State in the 2020 MLB Draft.

Westburg began the 2021 season with Low Single-A Delmarva and ended it with Double-A Bowie. He began the 2022 season with Bowie and ended it with Triple-A Norfolk. And this year his start at Norfolk has finally taken him to Baltimore.

And he checked a lot of boxes in his first game - first hit, first run, first RBI and first win with the Orioles, who beat Cincinnati 10-3 in a game delayed twice by rain for nearly two hours. It was a long night but a special one for Westburg, who went 1-for-4 with a single, walk, run and RBI. 

Before his debut game, he said knowing so many players so well should be a big help to him as he tries to establish something at the big league level.

The same whistle played and the same video appeared with the flashing ballpark lights. The crowd roared as usual, quick to forgive the previous day’s blown save.

Félix Bautista wanted the ball again Sunday afternoon. He understands the life of a reliever, and how failings are magnified in the ninth.

The memory of the two-out, game-tying home run that he surrendered to Mike Ford disappeared like his first-pitch four-seamer. Bautista recorded back-to-back strikeouts, allowed a single and blew away another hitter to preserve a 3-2 lead.

The tying run stood on second base after a steal. Bautista’s first pitch to Teoscar Hernández was clocked at 103.4 mph, the fastest by an Oriole in the Statcast era that began in 2015.

How did we live without it?

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde didn’t set up a meeting today with Jordan Westburg after the young infielder arrived at Camden Yards, his major league debut against the Reds still hours away. The choices were simple. Give him advice or give him space.

Hyde chose space.

“I try to be as relaxed as I possibly can with him,” Hyde said this afternoon. “I don’t think that anything I say is going to help him or hurt him. Maybe hurt him. But no, this is something they’ve dreamed about their whole lives, and this is something that’s been a goal since they were 8 years old.

“First day’s always a whirlwind, and a lot of stuff thrown at them, and you just kind of want the game to start for them and let them play.”

Westburg couldn’t play for an extra 15 minutes because of the precipitation that pushed back the start. His first at-bat came with two outs in the second inning, at the exact same time that more rain began to fall, increasing in intensity with each pitch following a standing ovation from fans who didn’t rush for cover.

After winning the last two games against Seattle by 6-4 and 3-2 scores to take another series, the Orioles welcome the Cincinnati Reds to Camden Yards tonight as this homestand continues. The clubs open a three-game series tonight.

The game will mark the big league debut of O's prospect Jordan Westburg, who will bat seventh and play second base in the series opener. 

The Orioles (47-29) are the current No. 1 wild card team in the American League. But they are second in the AL East and 4.5 games behind Tampa Bay.

The Orioles are 2-1 on this homestand, have won four of their past six and 10 of the last 15 games. They are now 16-7-2 in series play for the year, 8-3-1 in home series and 24-14 at Oriole Park in 2023. Sunday’s win improved them to 8-4 in rubber match games.

With win No. 47, the Orioles matched the season-long win total of the 2018 Orioles, a club that went 47-115.

Now ranked as the No. 34 prospect in baseball by MLBPipeline.com and No. 41 by Baseball America, Jordan Westburg is getting a lot of firsts out of the way today. Like his first interview as part of the Orioles before he takes the field with the Orioles tonight for the first time, batting seventh at second base.

“Feeling a lot right now,” Westburg said, surrounded by a large group of reporters this afternoon in the Baltimore clubhouse. “Don’t really know what emotions I’m feeling. Lot of excitement but yeah, it’s been a whirlwind of a day. I’m excited to be here and get it going.”

Did he seek any advice from others who have recently been through this day?

“Nothing major. Just kind of asking where to go and what time everything is right now. Make sure I’m not late.

“Just kind of soak it all in, enjoy the moment, don’t be too nervous. Just kind of the cliché things,” he said.

He has essentially played a full big league season’s worth of games at the Triple-A level. And now, after 158 games with the Norfolk Tides and having spent more than a calendar year with that club, Jordan Westburg’s big league debut is finally at hand.

He is expected to join the Orioles roster today and play in the game tonight when they open a three-game series with the Cincinnati Reds. As it turns out, 21-year-old Elly De La Cruz of the Reds will not be the only big-name prospect getting attention in this series.

Westburg is ready, probably more than ready, and maybe among the most impressive aspects of his game is that while fans and media bantered about him and speculated about when his time would finally come, he just kept taking great at-bats and hammering baseballs.

The focus is strong.

In what would turn out to be his last two games in Norfolk’s series at Nashville, he went 5-for-9 with a homer. One last reminder to the organization – still here, still raking, still ready.

With a walk-off win yesterday on Ryan McKenna’s two-run homer to right in the last of the 10^th, the Orioles moved a game closer to first place, strengthened their hold on a wild card playoff spot and set themselves up to try to win another series.

The Orioles (46-29) are 4 1/2 games behind Tampa Bay, which lost Saturday. They have won three of their past five games and nine of the last 14. They are now 4-4 in extra innings, 11-8 in June and 23-14 at Oriole Park.

They have split the first two games of this series and are 7-4 in rubber match games.

They came up with their fourth walk-off win of the year, and they have had five such losses. They have walk-off wins on April 13 against Oakland and April 21 and April 23 against Detroit. Adley Rutschman’s homer ended the Oakland game and Adam Frazier was the batter for the other two previous walk-off wins.

McKenna, who drilled a 95 mph fastball 393 feet to right, produced his first career walk-off hit.

Continuing to make the most of his second chance with the Orioles, outfielder Aaron Hicks found himself back in the O’s starting lineup on Saturday afternoon against Seattle. That was big for him because, on the day Cedric Mullins returned to the team, he was both still on the roster and still getting at-bats.

In 28 games this year with the Yankees, Hicks’ OPS was .524. In 20 games with the Orioles through yesterday, it is .984. He had three multi-hit games with New York and has six with Baltimore.

And Hicks came up big again for the Orioles in the last of the sixth, hitting a go-ahead homer 426 feet to center for a 4-3 lead. That lead would not hold up, but on Ryan McKenna's two-run walk-off homer in the 10th the Orioles would beat the Mariners 6-4. 

The Orioles improved to 46-29 and moved to 4 1/2 games back of Tampa Bay, which lost. 

So Mullins was back, but Hicks was still in the starting nine. 

The Orioles are, no doubt, very eager to turn the page today to a new game and the second game of their weekend series with the Seattle Mariners. Last night’s 13-1 loss was their biggest margin of defeat of 2023, topping the 12-2 loss at home to Texas on May 26.

The O’s offense has produced just three runs on seven hits the past two games after scoring 14 runs on 24 hits in the two games that preceded this most recent pair.

The Orioles allowed a season-high 13 runs and tied a season high in giving up 17 hits (it's happened three times, the last on May 31 against Cleveland). This marked the most runs surrendered since Sept. 10, 2022 versus Boston, when they allowed 17. The 12-run losing margin is their largest since that Sept. 10 game, which they lost 17-4. The Orioles are now 17-8 in series openers.

Baltimore is 45-29 for the year and trails first-place Tampa Bay by 5 1/2 games while leading third-place New York by five games in the American League East. The Orioles hold the first AL wild card spot today and lead that by five games over both Houston and New York.

Since leading Tampa Bay 6-0 at the end of the fourth inning on Tuesday, the Orioles have been outscored 26-5 by their opponents. They’ve allowed 26 runs the past three games.

The Orioles got their center fielder and leadoff hitter back today. And it’s in less than a month since he left the field on May 29 against Cleveland with a right groin strain. Mullins rehabbed in Florida, went 1-for-10 with a homer in three Triple-A rehab games this week and is back atop the lineup today.

“Feels good. Body is doing well,” he said this afternoon. “To be able to come back and get back in action feels pretty good.

“This is an injury I’ve never dealt with before, so there was really no idea in my head what the timeline would be like. Body was responding really well down in Florida and was able to progress every day. Kind of push the leg a bit to the point it feels really good.

“I had a hamstring injury in 2017 and kind of had a flashback to that. But it didn’t feel as bad as back then, so I had an idea it wasn’t going to be that long of a stint for me. But just didn’t know what the body would feel like.”

The Orioles went 11-9 without Mullins, and manager Brandon Hyde said that while the Orioles missed Mullins, of course, his return came maybe faster than expected.

The Orioles have made the following roster moves:

• Reinstated OF Cedric Mullins from the 10-day Injured List.
• Recalled LHP Bruce Zimmermann from Triple-A Norfolk.
• Optioned RHP Logan Gillaspie to Triple-A Norfolk.
• Optioned INF/OF Josh Lester to Triple-A Norfolk.