O's held off K.C. Saturday night, shut them out Sunday and now are on a 108-win pace

ANAHEIM, Calif. – The Orioles road trip will be in SoCal tonight for the beginning of a three-game series with the Los Angeles Angels. They headed west Sunday with some momentum after outlasting the Royals on Saturday night and beating them 5-0 yesterday.

A most welcome strong start from lefty Cole Irvin led to the latest series win, it was just the third outing this year of 6 2/3 or more innings by an Oriole. The Orioles recorded their first shutout of the year after posting 12 last season.

Irvin provided the club its second scoreless start of the new year after Albert Suárez had one Wednesday versus Minnesota. This was just the second quality start by an Oriole in the last 11 games and their eighth on the year. Grayson Rodriguez has three, Corbin Burnes two and now with one each are Irvin, Tyler Wells and Dean Kremer.

Irvin’s outing was versus a K.C. team that had won nine in a row at home until Saturday’s loss. A Royals club that had scored 16 runs in the first two games of this series and began play Sunday averaging 5.14 runs per game – third-best in the AL.

It was an impressive outing, and an impressive series win against a K.C. club that is 2-4 versus the Orioles, but 11-5 against everybody else.

The Orioles keep getting within a half-game of first behind the Yankees and both teams win. It happened Wednesday, Saturday and again yesterday.

At 14-7, the Orioles have the same record they had after 21 games last year and they are on a 108-win pace. They are close to the 1966 World Champs, who posted the best 21-game start in club history, going 16-5.

Jordan Westburg and Colton Cowser mashed back-to-back homers in the third inning at Kauffman Stadium to get the Baltimore offense going. Cowser hit his ball 430 feet with an exit velocity of 111.5 mph and Westburg blasted a homer to left center that went 433 with an exit velo of 110.5.

The Orioles continue to punish baseballs and are among the top teams in the sport in team average exit velocity and hard-hit rates.

This team has a deep lineup, even without Jackson Holliday hitting yet or without drawing many walks. Get your pitch and put your best swing on it. We are seeing that play out nightly in Birdland.

Through 21 games they’ve scored 122 runs for an average of 5.8 per game. They are batting .265 with a .782 team OPS. Their 33 homers are the most an O’s team has hit in the first 21 games.

The O’s offense has really been humming over the last 12 games, scoring 6.3 runs per game in that stretch. They scored seven runs or more six times in this span, bashing 20 doubles, three triples and 24 home runs. They are 9-3 during this run with 75 runs scored and this team batting line - .294/.349/.517/.866.

So yeah, pretty good.

We probably haven’t seen this team’s best baseball yet and they are currently missing three starting pitchers and the bullpen has been to say the least, quite leaky for a stretch of games that ended with Sunday’s shutout.

But yet they are scoring runs and winning two out of every three thus far.

Last September, on their last trip to Anaheim, they swept a three-game series.