A look at the confidence factor for Welington Castillo and Brad Brach

If you play major league baseball, you are probably a pretty confident player. But if you play every night against some of the best in the world, sometimes they might get the best of you. That could test that confidence.

In the Orioles clubhouse last night, two players talked about confidence. One seems to have it in abundance right now, and the other saw it waver but rebound in the last two days.

Catcher Welington Castillo's confidence might be hitting a peak in recent days. He has hit three homers in the last two games. The first tied the game Friday night, the second ended it with a walk-off win, and the three-run homer he hit last night turned a 5-4 deficit into a 7-5 Orioles lead. They won by that margin and can sweep the Blue Jays later this afternoon.

Castillo is 4-for-8 in this series with three homers and seven RBIs. In four games since his return from the disabled list he is 10-for-18 with three homers, 10 RBIs and an OPS of 1.656. Castillo is batting .439 (18-for-41) during a nine-game hitting streak.

So yeah, his confidence level is high, and he said he relished the chance to put his team ahead in the seventh inning last night.

"Honestly, it means a lot. I love that situation. I want to be in that situation. That is type of player that I am. I don't care if I fell down (didn't come through). I want to be the guy," he said.

The player who saw his confidence get a real test recently is reliever Brad Brach. After a three-game stretch in which he allowed five runs over 2 1/3, Brach has pitched a scoreless inning each of the last two nights. He retired the side in order in the ninth last night on 12 pitches, throwing 10 four-seam fastballs that averaged 95.7 mph.

After the game I asked Brach if he tweaked anything with his pitches to get out of a recent slump of sorts. He said he has not.

"The biggest thing was confidence," Brach said. "I lost it there for a couple of games and was kind of questioning myself. It can happen. It doesn't matter what level you are at. Wish I could have gotten out of that earlier. But I'm just going to focus on the positive now and that's in the past. Hopefully, we don't see it again the rest of the year."

Brach knows the fans got frustrated with him when he suffered a couple of blown saves. He got frustrated over it too.

"Those couple of (blown) saves, trust me, I didn't get much sleep. I don't know if any of the fans were able to sleep. But I think games like last night and tonight are why we play. We get to play in front of our home fans, and to the fans out there, stick with us because I think over the course of the season you're going to really appreciate what you see."

Brach is now 0-1 with a 3.68 ERA and nine saves in 12 chances. He has held hitters to a .195 batting average for the season and has an ERA of 1.42 in 12 home games.

The Orioles moved back into first place with Saturday night's win and the Yankees' loss to Tampa Bay. The Orioles are 25-16 overall and 15-3 at home. They have an eight-game home win streak riding today, and they are now 7-0-0 in seven series at Oriole Park. They are 7-1 versus Toronto, 4-0 at home.

By the way, if you think the Orioles are playing a lot of close games lately, they sure are. They've played 11 straight decided by one or two runs, going 5-6. Their last game decided by a larger margin was two weeks ago today. They beat the White Sox 4-0 on May 7 at Camden Yards.

This afternoon the Orioles go for their first three-game home sweep of the Blue Jays since Sept. 15-17, 2014.