SEATTLE - When the Orioles' Manny Machado drove in a run with an eighth-inning single Thursday at Seattle, it was his 50th RBI of the 2016 season. The Orioles now have four players with 50 RBIs or more, as Mark Trumbo has 60, Chris Davis 52 and Machado and Adam Jones have 50 each. The Orioles have played less than half the season at 78 games. So obviously, those four players have a shot to drive in 100 runs. Jonathan Schoop has 46 RBIs and he is on a 95-RBI pace. There are 22 players in the...

It's hard to believe, but we've reached the halfway point of the season. Yes, tonight is Game 81 for the Nationals. So how have they done to date? Well, if they can beat the Reds again tonight, they'll sit at 49-32. Do the math, that's a 98-win pace. Hard to complain much about that, right? Bryce Harper and Ben Revere are back in the lineup after getting last night off, but Wilson Ramos gets to sit this one out, with Jose Lobaton behind the plate catching Tanner Roark. Keep in mind the...

Thanks to the Orioles, we now know that a team can set a June home run record in July. Ah, West Coast life. Hyun Soo Kim hit a solo shot last night in the seventh inning to give the Orioles 56 in June, eclipsing the 1996 Athletics, who must leave the champagne on ice. Kim is 12-for-27 in his last seven starts, with two doubles, two home runs, seven RBIs, five walks and six runs scored, but he's probably on the bench tonight against Mariners left-hander Wade LeBlanc (who was great as Joey in...

Wilson Ramos started the night on Thursday leading all major league catchers with a .339 average, a .385 on-base percentage and a .554 slugging percentage. Ramos, 28, also had the least strikeouts of any major league backstop, with 30 total in 252 plate appearances. He had an eleven-game hit streak end in Wednesday's series finale with the New York Mets. Before the Nationals swept their three-game set with their National League East rivals that night, general manager Mike Rizzo talked to 106.7...

Only one Orioles batter has hit a home run 446 feet or longer in each of the last three baseball seasons, according to ESPN's Home Run Tracker. That batter is Jonathan Schoop, the O's hard-hitting 24-year-old second baseman who is well on his way to a career high in homers. As Schoop continues to learn to hit at the major league level, he will establish new Orioles precedents for power hitting by a second baseman, likely starting as soon as this season. Schoop had the team's second-longest...

SEATTLE - For the Orioles, the month of June ended with Thursday's 5-3 loss to Seattle at Safeco Field, but what a month it was overall. It just may have set the tone for the Orioles to push toward a second American League East crown in three years. Hyun Soo Kim's homer last night gave the O's a major league record 56 home runs in June, breaking their tie with the 1996 Oakland A's. But most important of all, the Orioles went 19-9 in during the month. When June started, they were in second...

SEATTLE - The Orioles broke their tie with Oakland and stand alone as the club hitting the most homers ever in June. But it came in a 5-3 loss to Seattle that ended their seven-game win streak tonight at Safeco Field. That took some of the shine off the homer Hyun Soo Kim hit in the seventh inning. He homered for the second straight game and gave the Orioles the major league mark of 56 homers for the month. They had been tied with the 1996 Oakland A's for most homers in June with 55. Kim...

Not sure that anyone anticipated how the Orioles would place T.J. McFarland on the disabled list yesterday, but he was receiving treatment on his left knee both days in San Diego. That should have been a pretty strong clue. I figured it may have been maintenance after he sustained the injury while covering home plate at Triple-A Norfolk. It turned out to be more serious. While the Orioles scour the market for available starting pitchers, they also leave a candle burning in the window for one of...

Danny Espinosa was the story of last night's blowout win, not to mention the story of June for the Nationals, given his incredible resurgence at the plate that might well have saved his job. There were a couple other teammates, though, who came through during this 13-4 win over the Reds at a time when each desperately needed that kind of positive performance: Ryan Zimmerman and Gio Gonzalez. Zimmerman got the Nationals' hitting party started with a three-run homer in the bottom of the first,...

Danny Espinosa had been down this path before, sporting a sub-.200 batting average and hearing calls from various directions for someone else to take his job. And his response - sulking, overworking, overthinking - all too often only made things worse. This time around, when he found himself hitting .199 on June 1 and hearing the calls for the Nationals to summon top prospect Trea Turner to replace him at shortstop, Espinosa fought the temptation and made a tough choice which wound up paying...