Zach Wilt: Markakis has taken nicely to leadoff role

How about that? The Orioles have won four straight, and have scored 27 runs and racked up 50 hits over that streak. As I type this post, MLB.com's headline says the Orioles continued their "upswing in Texas" with their 6-5 victory on Wednesday.

Upswing, huh? The O's are definitely trending in the right direction and appear to be gaining a bit of momentum. Tonight, they look to sweep the Rangers in Arlington and have now elevated themselves to 30-27, second place in the American League East, 4 ½ games back of the Toronto Blue Jays and 1 1/2 ahead of the New York Yankees.

A big part of their success has been the consistency of Nick Markakis atop the lineup. On Wednesday night, Markakis added two more hits to his 2014 season total, including his fourth home run of the season. He reached base four times (with a pair of walks) and is currently slashing .308/.366/.413.

I've been particularly impressed with Markakis' approach against left-handed pitching this season and it was on full display last night. His homer was hit off right-handed starter Nick Martinez, but in the sixth inning, Rangers manager Ron Washington brought in lefty Aaron Poreda to matchup against him. Markakis responding by singling to left field and driving in the go-ahead run.

"It doesn't really matter with Nick," O's skipper Buck Showalter told the media after the game. "There are so few in baseball that left and right doesn't matter." After last night, Markakis' average against southpaws climbed to .333. In more than 1,200 games and 5,500 plate appearances in his career, Markakis has hit .290 against lefties.

He's also fully embraced the role of hitting leadoff and has found quite a bit of success in that lineup spot. Headed into Wednesday, Markakis had slashed .298/.349/.372 with 18 walks in 50 games batting first. To leadoff games, he's hitting a red-hot .408/420/.449. That's exactly the type of table-setting managers hope to see from their No. 1 hitter.

As an admittedly unabashed fan, nothing would make me happier than to see Markakis make his first All-Star game this season. Unfortunately, he's got a long way to go, as he currently ranks 10th among AL outfielders in the most recent balloting totals behind his teammate Adam Jones and players like Torii Hunter, Yoenis Cespedes and Michael Brantley. Maybe I'm asking a bit too much for one of Baltimore's fan favorites.

Or maybe I'm not. Markakis' .308 average ranks fifth among American League outfielders, and one of the players on that list is O's slugger Nelson Cruz, who's hitting .319 as a left fielder. Markakis has 74 hits, just three shy of the AL lead among outfielders, behind only Melky Cabrera (77). He also strikes out at one of the lowest rates of any player at his position, 10.8 percent, behind only Brantley in the AL rankings.

Regardless of whether he's voted into the Mid-Summer Classic or possibly even selected by manager John Farrell, Markakis' improvements have been incredibly important to the Orioles. He's making contract with 93.9 percent of the pitches he swings at in the strike zone (a career-best total) and as a result, he's lowered his strikeout rate to 10.8 percent (his lowest total since 2011). The leadoff hitter transformation has suited him well and he complements the other eight guys in Showalter's lineup quite nicely.

Zach Wilt blogs about the Orioles at Baltimore Sports Report. Follow him on Twitter: @zamwi. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.