A few draft notes as the Orioles offense perks up

It seems like it could be a real clue as to which player the Orioles might select with the No. 5 overall pick in the upcoming First-Year Player Draft. The first 37 selections will be made Sunday night as the three-day, 20-round draft begins.

After they selected No. 1 overall in 2019 and took Oregon State catcher Adley Rutschman, and No. 2 overall last year and took Arkansas outfielder Heston Kjerstad, the O's will pick No. 5 this time.

The clue as to which player they pick could come in which players O's executive Mike Elias has personally scouted and/or met with for a one-on-one sitdown. After all, it makes sense that Elias would want to talk with the players he feels strongest about. Maybe the small group of players that he is truly considering with the No. 5 pick. Some information gets out about who he has seen and some does not.

That sounds good, but it may not tell us anything at all, says MLB.com and MLBPipeline.com analyst Jim Callis. He's a veteran of many years and many drafts.

So can we read anything into which players Elias has personally scouted?

"Not necessarily, because you can also rule the guy out too," Callis said in a recent interview. "I think he took a couple of swings through the south and he saw (high school shortstops) Brady House and Kahlil Watson. Granted, you can drive down to North Carolina from Baltimore pretty easily in a day. I always thought that stuff was overrated a little bit. Look, when you are doing mocks and cranking out mocks, everybody breathlessly reports that stuff because it is a little nugget.

"But what if Mike went to visit a player and sat down with him and the kid didn't impress him at all?"

On another topic, Callis said all teams, including the Orioles, are using technology and the data it produces more than ever now in sizing up draft prospects.

"Definitely," said Callis. "I think different teams look at the data to different extents. But it's another piece. They had all this stuff being measured at the (recent) combine and all the big high school showcases, they have all that data, too. You are getting batted ball (info), distances, exit velocities, and for pitchers, velocity, spin rates and the break on pitches. You know they were using Blast Motion (bat) sensors to measure swings and they were doing testing away from the field, doing reaction times and force motion plates.

"It definitely is (more prominent now). Even moreso than five years ago and exponentially more from 10 years ago."

For this entry recently, I talked more with Callis about the upcoming draft.

"To me, there is a tier of about eight guys in that top group," he said. "Not everyone at the top likes all eight players. You have to try and parse what can happen. With the Orioles, you hear so many different things. I've heard they are going to go college. I've heard Mike Elias is out seeing and scouting Brady House and Kahlil Watson, like they are all over the high school guys. I've heard they will cut a deal - a lot of teams think that they may cut a deal (sign someone underslot) like they did last year with Heston Kjerstad at No. 2 and try to save a significant amount money at five and spend it later in the draft. So I don't really know which one of those to believe and I don't think any one of those is set in stone."

Bats producing more lately: They recently got shut out in back-to-back games on June 23-24 by Houston and Toronto, but the Orioles also had a series sweep at Houston where they scored 27 runs. They've scored 40 runs their last six games and 52 runs their last nine since the shutouts.

All-Star center fielder Cedric Mullins is 10-for-25 (.400) his last six games with two homers. He is batting .328 (20-for-61) over his past 16 games with four doubles, six homers and 13 RBIs.

Austin Hays has hit safely in 10 of 11 games, batting (.357) 15-for-42 with two doubles, two homers and nine RBIs.

In his last 29 games, Ryan Mountcastle is batting .306./.374/.586/.960 (34-for-111) with four doubles, nine homers and 26 RBIs.

In his last 13 games dating to early May, Ramón Urías is batting .421 (16-for-38) with three doubles, two homers and 10 RBIs. He went 5-for-10 in Anaheim over the weekend.

Over the last six games, the team is batting .272/.353/.465/.817 with 11 doubles and 10 home runs while averaging 6.67 runs per game.