Tyler Wells in orange jersey

Visiting the Mariners on May 5, 2021, John Means threw nine hitless innings, striking out 12 in the process. 

“We were talking on the way here, last time we were here it was a pretty cool moment,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “Great story, and a really, really special day.”

The O’s current starting staff does not include their ace, who underwent Tommy John surgery in April. 

Bruce Zimmermann isn’t in the rotation either. After posting a 2.72 ERA in his first seven starts of the season, the lefty is down in Triple-A Norfolk working on returning to that form. 

The O’s No. 10 prospect, Kyle Bradish, was placed on the 15-day injured list on Friday. Another option off the board. 

There’s nothing dads love more than fundamentals. They preach it in Little League. They drill it on empty fields on Saturday afternoons. 

There were probably plenty of beaming fathers in the Baltimore area pointing at their televisions Sunday, turning to their sons or daughters, and saying, “See? Fundamentals.”

The Orioles (30-38) played a clean, fundamental game and turned several phenomenal defensive plays to help Brandon Hyde navigate an unwelcome bullpen game and beat the Rays 2-1 on Father’s Day at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

It started in the top of the second inning, when a picture-perfect relay from right fielder Ryan McKenna to second baseman Rougned Odor to catcher Adley Rutschman turned a Vidal Bruján single into an inning-ending tag play. The Orioles, already leading 1-0 on a first-inning home run by Anthony Santander, kept the Rays off the scoreboard.

It continued in the sixth, when Odor scooped a Taylor Walls grounder from the dirt and underhand lobbed it to first baseman Ryan Mountcastle to get Mike Baumann out of a jam. Another scoreless frame, and a 2-1 lead preserved.

The Orioles’ innings eater won’t be eating much today.

Jordan Lyles was scratched from his scheduled start against the Rays this afternoon due to a stomach virus, manager Brandon Hyde told the media before Sunday’s game. Reliever Austin Voth will start in Lyles’ stead, but isn’t expected to go more than a couple innings.

“We found out at about 7:30, 8 o’clock this morning,” said Hyde. “With the off-day tomorrow, that’s the one positive thing of this is that we do have a day off tomorrow, so I can use a lot of bullpen guys today and give them a day off tomorrow.”

Lyles hasn’t missed a turn in the rotation yet this season, making 13 starts and compiling a 5.10 ERA as Hyde’s veteran workhorse.

Voth, who was claimed off waivers from the Nationals on June 7, has pitched only 3 ⅓ innings with the Orioles, all in relief, surrendering two runs and striking out three. The 29-year-old righty started 22 games over five seasons in Washington.

KANSAS CITY - Anthony Santander rocked back on his left foot, pausing to admire his work.

When you hit a ball 455 feet into the fountains at Kauffman Stadium, you’re allowed a little time to bask.

Santander’s solo splashdown in the first inning of Sunday’s game was the first of three home runs for the Orioles and set the tone for the team’s marathon 10-7 win over the Royals (20-39).

The Orioles (26-35) hit 850 more feet worth of homers in the second, getting back-to-back shots from Ryan Mountcastle and Rougned Odor to open the inning and push the lead to 3-0. But the barrage didn’t end there, as the O’s scored two more in the inning on RBI singles from Cedric Mullins and Austin Hays off Kansas City starter Brad Keller.

“We swung the bat good all day," said manager Brandon Hyde after the win. "We had 15 hits, had really good at-bats, started early, which is great to see. We haven’t done that a ton.”

KANSAS CITY - A shock of bright blonde hair shone in the Orioles clubhouse this morning. 

Kyle Stowers is hard to miss.

The Orioles’ No. 8 prospect, per MLBPipeline.com, will join the taxi squad when the team heads north of the border to play the Blue Jays this week.

“He’s having a good year at Triple-A,” manager Brandon Hyde said in Kauffman Stadium’s away dugout before Sunday's game. “It’s a loose, left-handed swing. He’s got huge power. I like the way he plays defense, he can play three defensive spots in the outfield, left-handed bat."

A 2019 second-round pick out of Stanford University, Stowers is hitting .253 with 12 home runs and a .901 OPS in 49 games with Triple-A Norfolk this year. The 24-year-old led all Orioles minor leaguers with 27 homers in 2021.

KANSAS CITY - Anthony Santander appeared almost reluctant to don the Orioles’ home run chain Friday night.

After sneaking a meaningless solo home run inside Kauffman Stadium’s right field foul pole in the ninth inning of an 8-1 loss, Santander accepted the plastic chain with all the gravitas of a weathered monarch.

Tyler Nevin showed no such hesitancy Saturday. In fact, he welcomed it, beckoning Austin Hays to bestow the chain upon him after crushing a three-run, go-ahead homer to dead center field in the sixth inning of a 6-4 win over the Royals.

The honor was richly deserved.

Nevin’s 425-foot longball gave the Orioles their first lead since the third inning of Thursday’s series opener. Before the homer, the O’s had been outscored 18-7 in the first two-and-a-half games of their four-game series in Kansas City. 

KANSAS CITY – One infielder to the injured list, another recalled from Triple-A Norfolk. 

Too many times in his young career, Richie Martin has been on the wrong end of these sort of transactions. 

Martin has missed significant time with injury since he was selected by the Orioles with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 Rule 5 draft, including a fractured right wrist, a broken hamate bone in his left hand and a non-displaced left wrist fracture.

But in 2022, the 27-year-old has been both healthy and productive for Norfolk and has earned a call-up to the bigs as Ramón Urías heads to the 10-day injured list with a left oblique strain, retroactive to Friday.

Martin will start at second base for the first time in his big league career Saturday afternoon against the Royals.

KANSAS CITY - A light rain began to fall at Kauffman Stadium on Friday night as the bottom of the sixth inning got underway.

But the deluge had already transpired.

The Royals (20-37) poured runs on Bruce Zimmermann in the lefty’s most dismal outing in what has been a string of them. Zimmermann (2-5) allowed a career-high seven runs on 10 hits in just 4 2/3innings in an 8-1 loss in Kansas City.

The Orioles (24-35) have dropped the first two games of their four-game series, surrendering 15 runs in 18 innings.

Zimmermann’s rough night stood in stark contrast to that of Royals starter Jonathan Heasley (1-3), who allowed just one hit - an Anthony Santander single in the first inning - and no walks to go with seven strikeouts over seven innings of scoreless baseball. 

KANSAS CITY - For the first month of the season, Bruce Zimmermann was unstoppable, thanks to an unstoppable new changeup. 

Zimmermann’s ERA has gone from 2.72 on May 14 to 4.87 coming into Friday’s start. The last two starts have been particularly unkind, as the lefty has surrendered 11 combined earned runs over his last 9.2 innings. 

The changeup that fooled hitters for the first several starts isn’t nearly as effective. 

What changed?

“I’m not really sure,” manager Brandon Hyde said to the media gathered in the dugout at Kauffman Stadium. “To me, early in the year he was getting a lot of swing-and-miss on the changeup. In the dugout it has looked a little different his last few outings. Just not having the same kind of depth and swing-and-miss that he was getting on it with right-handed hitters. 

KANSAS CITY – With each swing, Carlos Santana was getting closer. A 277-foot flyout in the second inning, a 354-foot flyout in the third. 

Santana had seen 14 pitches from Jordan Lyles. None were sinkers. But the 15th was.

Lyles left a 90 mph sinker over the heart of the plate with one on and no out in the bottom of the fifth inning of Thursday’s game. Santana deposited it over the right-field wall for a two-run go-ahead shot. After the Orioles had battled back from a 4-1 deficit to tie the game in the top half of the inning, the Royals reclaimed the lead, this time for good.

Kansas City (19-37) got the best of Lyles and Baltimore (24-34) in a 7-5 win in the series opener in front of 15,594 fans at Kauffman Stadium. 

"Just a front-hip sinker that I thought we could get one by him, get a quick punchout," said Lyles after the start. "But it started on the plate and covered way too much of the plate, and it was just a bad pitch."

KANSAS CITY – Pitchers like Jordan Lyles are a dying breed.

Organizations are more cognizant of pitch counts than ever, and inning-eaters like the 31-year-old Lyles are increasingly hard to find.

But manager Brandon Hyde isn’t eager to assist in their extinction.

“I love the fact that he does not want to come out of the game,” Hyde said while speaking to the media in Kauffman Stadium’s away dugout. “I love the fact that he feels like it’s his game. He wants to win it or lose it."

Lyles’ throwback style is more pronounced on the Orioles’ largely inexperienced starting staff, as young hurlers like Tyler Wells, Kyle Bradish and Bruce Zimmermann are still learning how to go deeper into games.

DETROIT — Like hitting and offense? Boy, do I not have a game for you.

The Orioles, without the prominent bats of Austin Hays and Ryan Mountcastle, fell to the Tigers 3-0 this afternoon. The two teams combined to ground into six double plays. 

"Obviously they're two huge losses, incredible hitters and guys that you want in your lineup, but at the same time, guys go down on every team," said Trey Mancini. "You have to fill the void and try to keep the line moving."

Baltimore hit the ball hard, but right at defenders. Baseball, am I right? 

According to Statcast, eight balls off the bat of Orioles had an exit velocity of at least 100 mph. Despite gathering just four hits in the ballgame, the O’s had four outs on balls in play that had an expected batting average over .500. That includes two Trey Mancini flyouts to right field, which had an xBA of .840 and .770 respectively. Don’t let Trey buy your lottery ticket this year. 

Jorge Mateo bounced around for his entire career. 

In 2016, Mateo was ranked the 30th best prospect in baseball as a member of the New York Yankees organization. The speedster was traded to Oakland in 2017, and was traded once again to San Diego in 2020. 

That year, the shortstop finally made his debut for the Padres. Except, that season, he didn’t play a single game at the position he came up playing through the minor leagues. Mateo played seven games in the outfield, five games at second base, and spent four games as a designated hitter. 

The 2021 season was no different. Mateo spent most of his time in center field for the Padres, and upon being claimed by the Orioles, played mostly second base.

This year, however, Mateo finally got his chance. The pieces fell into place for Mateo to be an every day starter at just one position; shorstop. And so far, the 26-year-old has taken full advantage of that opportunity. 

After a bullpen game on Thursday, pitching was not the issue in Friday night's 4-2 loss to the Tigers. 

Brandon Hyde needed starting pitcher Jordan Lyles to eat some innings tonight against the Tigers. In Thursday’s series-deciding victory over the Cardinals, Hyde turned to six relievers to get the job done; Bryan Baker, Keegan Akin, Dillon Tate, Cionel Pérez, Joey Krehbiel and Félix Bautista. 

A long outing from Lyles would give those bullpen arms a much needed rest. The stars were all aligning for that scenario to play out, and for the most part, it did. None of those names appeared in tonight's game. 

"It was great to be able to rest some guys in the back of the 'pen today, coming off a day where we threw a lot of guys for multiple innings," said manager Brandon Hyde. 

In the first, Javier Báez grounded into a double play, approximately the 1,000th double play that the Orioles have turned this year. OK, fine, it was the 41st. That’s still a lot of double plays. Most in the American League, in fact. 

After a canceled 2020 minor league season, surely 2021 would be the year that Rylan Bannon made his major league debut. 

In 2019, Bannon flashed every tool the Orioles had hoped to see when they acquired the infielder from the Dodgers in 2018. At just 23, Bannon thrived in 20 games at Triple-A Norfolk. The Xavier product flaunted a .317/.344/.549 slash line, good for an .893 OPS. Defensively, Bannon was versatile, getting reps at both second and third base throughout the year. 

When the 2021 season rolled around, it didn’t appear that Bannon would have to wait long to get a call to the bigs. Demonstrate the same promise at Triple-A that the 2019 season showed, and the promotion would come sooner rather than later. 

Things didn’t work out that way. 

“It was definitely not exactly how I would’ve drawn it up,” Bannon joked.

In November, the Orioles hired co-hitting coaches, a pair of 31-year-olds in Matt Borgschulte and Ryan Fuller. 

Borgschulte had spent the previous four seasons in the Twins organization, making his way to their Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul before landing in Baltimore. Fuller, on the other hand, was an internal promotion. 

Fuller joined the O’s in 2019, brought on as the hitting coach for the Low-A Delmarva Shorebirds. From there, he was promoted to Bowie in 2021 before earning a trip to Baltimore this year. 

Coming up through Baltimore’s farm system, Fuller understands the importance of keeping hitting philosophies consistent, no matter what level of the organization you may be at. 

Ryan McKenna, recently promoted from Triple-A Norfolk, says that its been helping his development this season. 

The Orioles are returning home to Baltimore for a 10-game homestand, kicking it off with a matchup against their American League East rivals, the Boston Red Sox. As you tune in for all the action, you might hear our announcers call out a “Contestant of the Game.” That’s right - the wildly popular Maryland Lottery promotion has returned for the 2022 season and the Lottery will be selecting a contestant for each of the 162 Orioles games this season to win cash prizes.

Enter winning and non-winning FAST PLAY Home Run Riches Bases Loaded tickets, purchased between March 7 and Aug. 29, into your My Lottery Rewards account to be automatically entered into the promotion. Not yet a member of My Lottery Rewards? Click here -- it’s free and easy to join!

Each winner will receive $500 for being selected, plus an additional $500 for every Orioles home run hit during that game. Last year, these contestants really cleaned-up, as the O’s hit 195 home runs during the 2021 campaign – good for a total of $178,500 in prize money.

If you have already entered the promotion and want to find out if you were a winner in yesterday’s drawing, click here. The remaining drawings are May 24, June 28, July 26, and Aug. 30. Entries are cumulative, so once you enter a ticket, it remains in the mix unless selected as a winner.

Will last year’s Silver Slugger performance of Cedric Mullins and Trey Mancini’s 2021 Home Run Derby heroics ignite the Oriole bats for the “Contestants of the Game” this year? Be sure to watch the Orioles all season long on MASN and MASN2 as the home run tally adds up!