The road trip that featured numerous rain delays and two series sweeps - one that the Orioles won and one they did not - is finally over. Today they begin a week-long homestand that will include three games versus the Boston Red Sox and three against the Tampa Bay Rays.

This starts a stretch of 14 straight games within the American League East. The Birds go to Toronto and Tampa Bay for a pair of four-game series after this homestand at Oriole Park.

Today's game is a matchup between the second- and third-place teams in the division. The Orioles (33-18) are two games behind the New York Yankees while Boston (27-26) is nine games out. Tampa Bay (26-28) is 10 1/2 back, with Toronto (23-29) in last place and 12 1/2 games out.

The Orioles went 32-20 last year within the AL East and are 7-2 this year. That combined record of 39-22 represents a winning percentage of .639. Over 162 games that pace would give the team 103 victories.

The Orioles swept Boston three straight at Fenway Park from April 9-11 in their only previous meeting this season, by scores of 7-1, 7-5 and 9-4. They scored 23 runs on 31 hits and had five homers that series, recording a team OPS of .828 at Fenway Park. The pitching staff posted a team ERA of 2.89 in the three games.

The Orioles have made it home after their 4-3 road trip to St. Louis and Chicago and now they begin a stretch of four straight series versus American League East opponents.

The Orioles (33-18), two games out in the division behind New York, host Boston (27-26), a club that is in third place but is nine games out. Today these teams start a three-game series and run of 14 games for the Orioles against Boston, Tampa Bay, Toronto and Tampa Bay.

After scoring just eight runs on 14 hits in three losses at St. Louis, the O's got more productive offense during the four-game sweep at Chicago. They scored 23 runs on 35 hits with eight doubles and eight homers in that series. They went 7-for-25 with runners in scoring position in winning the games by two, two, two and three runs.

Boston won Sunday to avoid being swept at home by Milwaukee. With that 2-1 win, Boston is an major league-best 9-0 on Sundays, by a combined 58-20 score. 

The Orioles swept Boston April 9-11 at Fenway Park, winning by 7-1, 7-5 and 9-4 scores. Baltimore is 39-22 (.639) in the AL East since the start of last year.

Ahead of their series- and homestand-opening game with the Boston Red Sox this afternoon, the Orioles have activated right-handed pitcher Thyago Vieira and optioned lefty Nick Vespi back to Triple-A Norfolk.

On Saturday afternoon the O's sent Triple-A pitcher Garrett Stallings to the Milwaukee Brewers and acquired right-handers Vieira and minor leaguer Aneuris Rodriguez. Rodriguez is heading down to the Florida Complex League while Vieira now joins the big club and will wear No. 40.

Vieira, 31, had a 5.64 ERA, 1.701 WHIP and one save in 16 appearances with the Brewers. He owns a career 6.18 ERA and 1.667 WHIP in 41 games with the Mariners, White Sox and Brewers since making his major league debut in 2017. He pitched in Japan from 2020-22.

Vieira throws some high-octane fastballs, with a two-seam sinker that averages 96.9 mph and a four-seamer at 97.7 mph. He’s averaging 4.9 walks per nine innings in the majors to go with nine strikeouts. He’s averaged 4.5 walks in 10 minor league seasons.

The Brewers designated Vieira for assignment on Monday. He’s out of options.

CHICAGO – The Orioles' road trip has taken them to Chicago, where tonight the Birds (29-18) open a four-game series against the team with the worst record in the majors, the Chicago White Sox (15-35).

The Orioles have fallen 3.5 games behind first-place New York in the American League East. The Yankees won this afternoon against Seattle and split that four-game series while the Orioles were getting swept by the St. Louis Cardinals by 6-3, 3-1 and 5-4 scores.

That series result ended the O’s run of 106 straight regular-season series without being swept. They were last swept in the regular season from May 13-15, 2022 at Detroit.

Chicago’s start to this season was terrible as the White Sox were 3-22 on April 25. Then they swept a three-game series from Tampa Bay to start a run in which they went 11-8 over 19 games. They are now 1-5 in the past six games.

Their past two series were against AL East opponents, and they went 0-3 versus the Yankees and just lost two of three to Toronto, losing 9-2 yesterday.

ST. LOUIS – It was just a series when a lot went wrong for the Orioles. And for the first time in over two years, they have been swept three straight in the regular season.

The St. Louis Cardinals, who entered this series with a 20-26 record, did the job today, overcoming a 3-0 deficit to beat the Orioles 5-4 and complete the sweep at Busch Stadium.

Something even went wrong as the O's tried to rally in the ninth against reliever Ryan Fernandez. Austin Hays singled and went to third on pinch-hitter Cedric Mullins' single. Then pinch hitter Kyle Stowers lined one deep to right and Lars Nootbaar made a great catch. Hays scored from third but the Cards doubled Mullins off first base. No doubt he wanted to steam home with the tying run, but the ball was caught.

"I thought it was gone off the bat," Hays said of Stowers blast, adding that Mullins made what looked like a good decision in taking off on contact. "He's got a good chance to score on that ball if it gets down."

The Birds also contributed to their demise by making two errors as St. Louis scored three in the sixth to get the lead.

ST. LOUIS – The Orioles, even as visitors, took the field first today at Busch Stadium. They batted second. Their pitcher to start the day was reliever Jacob Webb.

It was not a usual day or game.

This was the resumption of last night’s suspended game in the last of the sixth with the game tied 1-1.

The Orioles have not had a lead in this series, and four batters after play resumed they were behind again today. Their only hit after play resumed was Ryan Mountcastle's single in the seventh, which snapped a 1-for-26 run. 

Second baseman Nolan Gorman’s two-run homer to right in the last of the sixth off lefty Keegan Akin – a left-on-left home run – gave St. Louis a 3-1 lead. The Cards beat the Orioles by that same score. The official attendance from the game that began last night, with many fewer here today, was 32,582.

ST. LOUIS - The Orioles and Cardinals will wrap up their three-game series today at Busch Stadium, completing last night's suspended game and then playing the regularly scheduled third and final game of the set.

The O's have struggled to hit thus far this series, going 3-for-31 in Monday's 6-3 loss. Last night's game was suspended by rain in a 1-1 tie before the beginning of the last of the sixth inning. The O's went 2-for-21 in that one, getting doubles from Kyle Stowers and Jorge Mateo.

Mateo's two-base hit to left, stung at 107.7 mph off his bat into left field, scored the Birds' only run last night. It tied the game 1-1 in the fifth after Nolan Gorman's RBI double in the second had put St. Louis ahead.

The O's Gunnar Henderson hit his 16th homer here on Monday night, a three-run shot. He has hit four in the last four completed O's games and 13 in the last 30 games. According to MLB.com's Sarah Langs, Henderson is the fifth player age 22 or younger to hit at least 16 homers in his team's first 45 games. He joins Washington's Bryce Harper in 2015, Seattle's Alex Rodriguez in 1998, the Washington Senators' Harmon Killebrew in 1959 and the Milwaukee Braves' Eddie Matthews in 1953. 

If Henderson hits one in what is left of last night's game, he will have homered in five consecutive games. The last Oriole to do that was Jonathan Schoop in 2018. The team record is six games in a row with a home run, co-held by Reggie Jackson in 1976 and Chris Davis in 2012.

ST. LOUIS – Sometimes the strike call you don’t get leads to the fastball you throw that leaves the ballpark.

That happened to the Orioles tonight, and it was a frustrating way to begin their week-long road trip to St. Louis and Chicago.

This game sure had its frustrations for the Orioles.

Take the Cardinals' four-run last of the fourth, which gave them a 5-0 lead.

No. 9 hitter Michael Siani hit a three-run homer in that inning, but only after home plate umpire Laz Diaz clearly missed an 0-2 pitch and called ball one instead of strike three. Two pitches later, Siani hit a Dean Kremer fastball over the inner half for a jack into the right-field bullpen and a 5-0 lead.

ST. LOUIS – After going 5-3 on the season’s longest homestand, the Orioles are in St. Louis tonight to begin a three-game series and seven-game road trip that moves to Chicago on Thursday.

The Seattle pitching staff began the weekend at Camden Yards ranked fourth in the American League in team ERA at 3.33 and fifth in rotation ERA at 3.36.

But the Orioles scored 18 runs on 28 hits off the Mariners, including six doubles, three triples and four homers, while going 2-1 in the weekend series. The team average was .277 and OPS .839, and they went 9-for-28 with runners in scoring position against Seattle.

The Orioles (29-15) have won three of the last four games, 10 of 14 and 17 of their past 25. They are now 10-3-2 in series for the year and are 6-2-1 in home series. They are now 4-2 in rubber match games.

One of the best developments in recent days for the club might be that some struggling outfielders started to hit. Center fielder Cedric Mullins went 3-for-8 with two RBIs the last two days, and at least that’s a start to turning around his season. Austin Hays has five hits his last 13 at-bats, which actually dates back to before he went on the injured list. And Colton Cowser, whose average was down to .267 in early May, is now batting .310 (9-for-29) with three doubles, four RBIs and an .861 OPS his past nine games.

ST. LOUIS – The Orioles may be back to having one closer, and it’s once again veteran Craig Kimbrel. He buzzed through the ninth inning Sunday on 14 pitches with two strikeouts, recording the ninth save of his year and the 426th of his career. 

Over his past four games, he has thrown four hitless and scoreless innings, lowering his ERA from 4.73 to 3.63, with no walks and six strikeouts in that span.

So is he the main ninth-inning guy again?

“Well yeah, I think so. Probably,” manager Brandon Hyde said this afternoon at Busch Stadium before the opener of the series and the road trip in St. Louis. “I’m going to see how he feels today. … He looked great yesterday. That was awesome. Really happy. Nice to get him a three-run lead, have a little cushion there. But I thought the stuff was outstanding.”

The Orioles are reunited today with their good friend and 2023 teammate, right-hander Kyle Gibson. He pitched to a 4.73 ERA over 192 innings for the Orioles and is 3-2 with a 4.09 ERA for the Cardinals and will face the O’s Wednesday afternoon.

Facing a first-place Seattle team, one that was 20-12 since April 10 with a team ERA of 2.63, the Orioles won the series-opening game last night. And now a win in one of the next two days will give them yet another series victory.

The Orioles offense, one that scored 3.7 runs per game the previous 14 games to rank 21st in the majors in that span, broke out last night in a 9-2 win with 10 hits and five for extra bases. Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman and Colton Cowser all had two-hit games. Henderson and Cowser each drove in two runs as the Orioles went 4-for-9 with runners in scoring position and had five players drive in runs.

The first five batters scored to start the game, the first time the Birds have done that since the first six scored to begin a July 30, 2023 game against the Yankees. Jorge Mateo and Henderson tripled to begin the seventh inning, the first time the Orioles have hit back-to-back triples since July 3, 2008 versus Kansas City (4th inning, Adam Jones and Brandon Fahey). Rutschman and pinch-hitter Austin Hays followed with doubles, marking the first time the team has hit four consecutive extra-base hits since Sept. 23, 2018 at New York (6th inning, Trey Mancini, Tim Beckham, Renato Núñez and Joey Rickard).

Henderson and Jordan Westburg have hit leadoff homers the last two games, the sixth time in O's history the team has hit a leadoff homer in at least two consecutive team games and the first time since Melvin Mora did it June 28-29, 2002. Baltimore leads the major leagues with five leadoff homers this season; Henderson's four leadoff home runs are tied with Philadelphia's Kyle Schwarber for the most this season.

The O's have an majors-best 2.12 ERA in their last 15 games (since April 29). During that time, the Birds have surrendered an majors-low 92 hits while holding opponents to a .186 batting average. The 2.12 ERA is the best mark in a 15-game span in a single season by the Orioles since Sept. 6-21, 2014 (2.06).

Orioles right-hander Corbin Burnes, the 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner and a pitcher who finished seventh and eighth for that honor the last two years, is having another strong season. It’s his first year in Baltimore and could be his only year with the Orioles.

He is 3-2 with a 2.68 ERA over nine starts. His ERA and his .579 OPS against are both the best numbers he has posted since that Cy Young season.

But one area on the stat sheet that looks quite different for Burnes is his strikeouts total. He got 11 on Opening Day and looked dominant then with big swing-and-miss stuff, but his K rate is 7.17 per nine innings since then.

This is a pitcher with a combined 677 strikeouts (second in the majors to Gerrit Cole) from 2021 through 2023. His K rate for those three years was 10.8.

But it’s 8.2 this season, and as of yesterday Burnes ranks tied for 20^th in the American League in strikeouts.

Coming off a season when they posted a winning record against every other American League East club for the first time since 2014, the Orioles are playing well again so far this year in division games.

There have just been so few to date. The Orioles went 3-0 at Boston April 9-11 and went 3-1 versus the Yankees at home in late April and earlier this month.

The Yankees have played the most AL East games with 16 while Boston has played the fewest, just three.

AL East vs. AL East in 2024:

.857 - Baltimore (6-1)
.500 - New York (8-8) and Toronto (5-5)
.400 - Tampa Bay (4-6)
.000 - Boston (0-3)

Kyle Stowers played in the bigs with the Orioles for parts of the 2022 and 2023 seasons, batting .207/.267/.331/.598 with three career homers in 131 plate appearances.

He has spent parts of the last four years at Triple-A, posting a .773 OPS there in 22 games during the 2021 season. He had an .884 OPS during part of the 2022 season and an OPS of .875 in 68 games last year. In 2024 he has hit .240/.315/.541/.856 with 11 homers and 32 RBIs in 36 games.

That is a ton of Triple-A plate appearances – 948 to be exact – and now he’d like to show he can stay in the majors.

“I feel ready. I feel ready to help this team win,” Stowers said this afternoon after his latest call-up. “Whatever, you know, my role is, whatever I’m called to do. Just going to go out there and give my all and have a good time. Play with a lot of gratitude. Just happy to be here.”

He had some rough times last year. He missed a couple of months with a shoulder injury and late in the year was hit by a pitch that fractured his nose.

Beginning their series against Arizona last night, the Orioles were just one game over .500 this year versus National League teams. They had gone 1-2 against Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, 3-0 versus Cincinnati and 1-1 against Washington.

A 6-5 record became 7-5 against the NL with Friday’s 4-2 win to start a nine-game homestand.

Cole Irvin won his fourth straight start, the first time he has done that in his career. And he became the first Oriole to win four in a row since Kyle Bradish from Aug. 20-Sept. 8, 2023.

He ran his scoreless innings streak to 22 2/3 innings before allowing Ketel Marte’s third-inning solo homer. That is the longest scoreless streak for the club since Dean Kremer went 22 2/3 from June 17-July 4, 2022.

Irvin, who threw a season-high 95 pitches, improved to 4-1 with a 2.86 ERA while allowing two runs over 5 2/3 innings. Over his past four starts he has given up just two runs on 15 hits over 25 2/3 for an ERA of 0.70 in that span.

Here is a tale of two Orioles hitters. Both are doing well in 2024 and both did well in 2023. But their batter profiles have changed a lot in what is still kind of a small sample for this year. But we're about to reach the 25 percent point into this season, so it’s not that small.

But so far Adley Rutschman is walking a lot less and striking out more, yet still hitting well. Ryan O’Hearn is walking more, fanning less and still hitting well.

Rutschman’s OPS was .809 last year, and he took 59.0 percent of pitches he saw. This year he is taking less at 51.6 percent, but heading into Friday’s series opener with Arizona, his OPS was at .814.

But his walk rate has dropped from an above-average 13.4 percent last year to a below-average 5.1 now. His strikeout rate is up from 14.7 to 17.7. Making less contact, walking less but still a very productive hitter for the Orioles.

Now take Ryan O’Hearn, who had an .801 OPS last year. That figure was .915 at first pitch Friday (and is .930 now).

It was a week ago yesterday when the Orioles started a four-game series with the New York Yankees. The day before, they'd blown a ninth-inning lead for the second time in three games versus Oakland and lost 7-6. They lost two of three in that series.

They have lost one game since, due to a run of stunning pitching.

In the seven games beginning with the Yankees series, they have allowed, in order, zero, two, two and two runs. Then in Cincinnati, they allowed zero, one and one run as they outscored the Reds 16-2 during a three-game sweep at Great American Ball Park.

Over the last seven games that is two runs or fewer given up each game. It is the longest such run by an O’s team within a single season since an eight-game streak from Aug. 1-Aug. 8, 1980.

The Orioles have allowed eight runs total and posted a team ERA of 1.14 the past seven games, along with an opponent batting average of .154 and a .455 OPS against.

CINCINNATI – Maybe the O’s starters are just trying to match or better the previous pitcher. But whatever the reason, this team, as catcher James McCann observed last night, has used great game plans and execution to go on a tremendous pitching roll.

Today it led them to a three-game sweep of the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park.

The O’s had not swept the Reds since the 2014 season, and never on the road before today’s 11-1 win behind Dean Kremer’s strong start, Jordan Westburg’s two-run homer, two RBIs from Adley Rutschman and Anthony Santander's grand slam in the ninth to cap it off. 

Friday night here, Cole Irvin threw 6 1/3 scoreless innings. Lefty John Means went seven without allowing a run last night.

Today Kremer pitched six scoreless while allowing just one hit, a clean single to left by Christian Encarnacion-Strand in the fifth. He walked one and fanned six, throwing 93 pitches.

CINCINNATI – After pitching-led 3-0 and 2-1 wins over the Cincinnati Reds this weekend, the Orioles can sweep this series today with a victory at Great American Ball Park.

The O’s took a 2-0 lead to the ninth last night and hung on for a 2-1 win. They improved to 22-11 and have won three in a row, five of six, 10 of 14 and 14 of the last 19 games. They are now 10-4 in road games.

They have won this series and are now 8-3 in series play for the season and are 4-1 in road series, losing only at Pittsburgh.

Baltimore has two series sweeps, both of three games, this year. They won three straight April 9-11 at Boston by a combined 23-10 score and three in a row at home versus Minnesota April 15-17 by 22-9. 

The Orioles began this series ranking first in the American League in slugging and fourth in OPS. They remain first in the major leagues in team homers and were scoring 5.29 runs per game – third-best in the majors – at the start of this weekend.

CINCINNATI – Orioles pitcher Grayson Rodriguez, on the 15-day injured list since May 1 - retroactive to April 30 - with right shoulder inflammation, started a throwing program today off flat ground at Great American Ball Park. He made throws from 60 to 75 feet.

Orioles pitching coach Drew French, in a pregame interview with reporters, said Rodriguez's return is still to be determined.

“We’re going to take it one step at a time. We’re just going to keep stacking days on top of each other. Hopefully give him a couple of bullpens before we release him back," said French.

French isn’t sure yet whether Rodriguez, who is 4-1 with a 3.71 ERA over six starts, will need a rehab assignment.

“Right now we’re just looking at the early stages, like getting him to his first bullpen. That is what kind of today looked like.”