Cossins learned that Rutschman came as advertised

Jordan Lyles coaxed the double play grounder that he needed last night with runners on the corners with one out in the third inning. Catcher Adley Rutschman jogged to the first base line, gave Lyles a congratulatory pat and maintained a dialogue with him as they walked to the dugout.

Tim Cossins, the Orioles’ major league field coordinator, is watching from a distance this season after relocating from the dugout to the bullpen. He smiles at the mention of Rutschman’s enthusiastic routine. And he’s reminded of the conversations that were held to debate its merits.

The bottom line was this: Changing anything about Rutschman defied logic. Let the kid keep doing it.

Tweak some mechanics behind the plate to improve throwing accuracy. That’s fine. But otherwise, don’t fix the parts that aren’t broken.

Cossins, also the team’s catching instructor, believes that baseball’s former No. 1 prospect came as advertised, and this is a supreme compliment.

“There was a massive expectation when he got here of what he could do,” Cossins said yesterday. “As much as I’ve seen him on video and during the season, the time I spent with him in spring training, I knew what he was capable of. I’ve been around enough guys of high caliber to know what I thought would work, but to be around him every day and to see what he does, you see the moments when he doesn’t have the ball in his hand, how good he is in those moments, it’s very, very, very good.”

There’s a polish to Rutschman that defies his rookie status. Scouts checked that box a long time ago, going back to his days at Oregon State. The tools were obvious, to dig deeper enabled them to find the intangibles.

“I just think he has a finished work on all parts of his game that is exceptional,” Cousins said. “He has feel, his physical skills are good, his leadership skills are outstanding. There’s just a lot of parts to the position that take a long time to develop, and his starting point was higher, so it’s refreshing to see.

“He’s got a grasp on a lot of things that take other people a long time to get in order. He just has it in order so far.”

Rutschman has thrown out 7-of-26 runners attempting to steal, his accuracy improving after some early balls pushed arm-side that skipped into center field.

“That’s one of those things where I hadn’t spent a ton of time with him on a daily basis, and there were some fundamental things that we identified that we’re working on and that we work on daily in his pregame routine, and it’s based around those things,” Cossins said, without getting into too many of the specifics.

“He’s just so strong that anything he does, somewhere along the throwing chain, he can get out of sync. He’s like a pitcher, he’s got so much movement and so much arm strength. That’s very similar to a pitcher. It’s just getting him in line and doing some things sequentially that allow him to throw the ball straight. And not that he hasn’t thrown the ball straight. Just routinely going about it, cleaning up.

“There’s a lot of those tiny things that are left on the check list. He’s not a finished product by any means, which is exciting. It’s just creating routines and patterns that you repeat over and over again daily that gives you the results that you want, and that’s what he’s doing. I love that about him. He’s super routine, he loves routine things, and he just repeats them so well. Hopefully, throughout his career he just keeps doing it and gets the same result.”

Last night began with Rutschman leading major league rookies and ranking third among catchers with a 3.6 fWAR per FanGraphs.com. He was tied with Ramón Urías for the club lead in defensive runs saved with nine, third-most among major league catchers per Sports Info Solutions.

Rutschman ranked fifth among catchers with a 50.1 percent strike rate and tied for ninth with three catcher framing runs per Statcast.

It’s no coincidence that the pitching staff improved this year with Rutschman becoming the starter and Robinson Chirinos staying on the roster.

Cossins divides the credit between the pitchers and catchers, saying he likes to “split it right down the middle.”

“Of course, I’m biased. I’d like to think our catchers have had a big hand in some of the success, but I also give these pitchers a tremendous amount of credit, as well,” he said.

“This is a collective effort. Everybody dove in at first. We made some organizational adjustments on how we’re going to do things from the pitching side, and it stood up. I think you’re starting to see some stuff. It’s a credit to the people who identified stuff.”

The Orioles signed Chirinos knowing that he’d make a seamless transition from primary starter to backup and mentor after Rutschman recovered from a strained triceps and accumulated more at-bats in the minors.

“He’s the perfect guy to be here at this point, and it’s playing out in a way that I hope people see,” Cossins said. “The impact that a veteran catcher has on a team is not always seen in moments of physical activity, blocking balls, throwing. It’s the other stuff. It’s the moments that he spends studying and sharing information with pitchers and having those moments stand up in a game. It’s the moments on the plane, him talking to Adley about whatever that make an impact. It’s just an immeasurable thing.

“I know that it’s not one of those things that people can kind of quantify. It’s just a very real element and it’s really, really contributed to this team and these people around here. Can’t say enough about Robinson.”

Chirinos was on the bench again last night. Rutschman handled the catching duties and made that same trip to the first base line after each inning.

Has Cossins seen a catcher do this in the past?

“Yeah,” he said, “in Little League.”

“It’s very unique, and it’s something, quite honestly, that we talked about,” he said. “(Coordinator of instruction) Jeff Kunkel and I talked about it, whether we were going to leave it in. I think all conventional wisdom would say, maybe take it out. But I thought that it’s such a unique part to his game that’s so authentic to him, and genuine, so who were we to take it out?

“The vision is to have a million little Adley’s doing the same thing in Little League and emulating him. I think that’s so cool for our game. And it’s genuine, the information’s real. It’s not a showy thing, it’s him catching up with his pitcher. I think it’s really cool.”