Dillon Atkinson: O's power bats are surging at the right time

In the month of June, the Orioles had one of the hottest, if not the hottest, offense in the big leagues. However, when the calendar flipped to July, the bats went cold and the club's top three sluggers weren't anywhere to be found. For a team that is so reliant on its offense since it has a thin pitching staff, many rightfully assumed success wouldn't be likely. And it wasn't. In July and August combined, the O's had a 25-30 record. With an inconsistent rotation and a slumping offense, things weren't looking bright. But as of late, the O's bats have woken up, especially from the club's top three sluggers: Manny Machado, Mark Trumbo and Chris Davis.

In 197 plate appearances from July 1 through August 22, Machado was slashing .249/.299/.459 with just a 95 wRC+. It's hard to think about because of who we're talking about, but Machado's bat went mostly silent for a month and a half. With the type of player this 24-year-old is, you have to stick with him and ride out the slumps, and he is proving why you need to stick with him. Since then, including his grand slam off Jake Odorizzi last night, the O's star third baseman has a slash line of .339/.359/.661 with a 169 wRC+ over 64 plate appearances.

With Trumbo, it's certainly safe to say he definitely outperformed his career norms in the first half, so regression was expected. But it was the dramatic amount of regression that was surprising. From the start of the season through the end of June, Trumbo was hitting .282/.331/.558 with a 133 wRC+. Since then through August 22: .208/.273/.506 with a 100 wRC+. Now, since August 23, Trumbo hasn't returned to his first half form, but he's definitely getting on base more, batting .239/.386/.478 with a 134 wRC+. In a way, he has been just as productive as his first half, but he's just doing it in a different manner. He's slugging less, yet still remains a power threat, still being the major-league leader in long balls. But the .386 on-base percentage with pop is definitely beneficial to the ballclub.

Now it's time to talk about the $161-million man. Davis was the worst hitter of these three power bats from July 1 through August 22, hitting .184/.311/.395 with a 90 wRC+ and a 35.6-percent strikeout rate. Orioles fans were begging for Davis to either get a couple days off to get a mental break or to be placed lower in the lineup so he couldn't hurt the team as much in potential run-scoring opportunities. Instead, manager Buck Showalter kept throwing Davis in the middle of the lineup, and the left-handed masher has finally come through with a reward. Since August 23, Davis is slashing .286/.364/.673 with a 171 wRC+, which is arguably the best of these three over that time period. He's still striking out a bunch, but that was expected. He made the simplest of adjustments: he started swinging at strikes. According to FanGraphs, on pitches in the strike zone, Davis only swung at 61.4 percent of them from July 1 through August 22. From August 23 through today, he has upped that to 72.9 percent.

These three hitters heating up again have helped the O's turn around their poor 25-30 record over the last two months into a great start of 4-1 in September. In these five September contests, the O's have averaged six runs per game. Not to mention, Kevin Gausman and Ubaldo Jimenez have stepped up in a huge way for the rotation since O's ace Chris Tillman was placed on the shelf. Good pitching and good hitting at the same time is helping the Orioles stay in the postseason race. And if both departments stay hot, the O's could find themselves back on top of the American League East for the second time in three seasons.

Dillon Atkinson blogs about the Orioles for Orioles Uncensored. Follow him on Twitter: @DAtkinsonOU. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. 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.