Looking for fewer strikeouts versus the AL East, plus farm notes

Put the ball in play and something good could happen. That has been true on offense in baseball forever. Although we are in an era now with big swings and big strikeout numbers.

As the Orioles were held to four hits and lost 7-1 at Boston Friday night, they struck out just five times while drawing one walk.

But as the Orioles look to get better and win more often in the rugged American League East, they are going to need to put the ball in play more versus other division clubs. Not only do these teams feature good pitching staffs, but they seem to scout well too, and if a hitter wants to chase pitches, these pitchers can and will take maximum advantage of that.

The Orioles do not strike out the most in the AL. They rank with the fifth-highest K rate for their hitters at 24.1 percent.

But in six games this month versus the Yankees - six games in which the Orioles went 3-3 - they did strike out in order 14, 13, 10, 12, 16 and 17 times. They fanned 17 times Thursday night, yet still won 3-2 in 10 innings.

O's manager Brandon Hyde was not in a hat-tipping mode when asked yesterday before the game in Boston about how lefty Jordan Montgomery was carving up his hitters on Thursday at Oriole Park. Montgomery fanned a career-high 12 batters over 5 2/3 innings. This is a pitcher with good stuff and stats, yes, but also one who had struck out just 16 in 19 innings in his previous four games. His big strikeout game on Thursday produced just his second career 10-strikeout game in 73 starts.

He got 12 swings-and-misses the first three innings and 16 over the first four. He got 22 whiffs on 53 swings by O's batters.

"We had had pretty good at-bats against Montgomery in his previous starts against us," Hyde said. "(Thursday) night the changeup was a real weapon against us. We didn't make the adjustment early enough on it, to be honest with you. I thought we had a really good approach going into the game and guys kind of let that get away from them. Just because we were out in front so much.

"When we are at our best is when we are thinking, as a right-handed hitter, of going the other way. And staying in that right-center gap, really staying on the baseball and letting it travel. And for the first six, seven innings we were extremely jumpy, out in front. And it really played into Montgomery's hands."

Montgomery got 10 whiffs on 17 changeups O's batters swung at, and eight against 14 curveballs.

"(Ryan) Mountcastle, he got on a fastball. But really, he was changing speeds on us and we didn't make very good adjustments. So, I was disappointed in that, to be honest with you. The at-bats got better later in the game when he was out. But hopefully, guys can learn from that and we'll be better going forward. But for me, that was a young lineup trying to do too much against a guy changing speeds and showing good stuff as well."

In last night's loss to the Red Sox, Austin Hays blasted homer No. 21 in the O's second inning. Hays has homered five times his last seven games and seven times in the past 12. He leads the Orioles with 34 RBIs since the All-Star break. Hays has seven homers and 16 RBIs this month, and he has now homered 15 times in 69 games in September and 15 times in 121 games in all other months combined.

The O's last night reached the 100-loss mark at 47-100. They would need to go 0-15 to match the 2018 Orioles for most losses ever in club history at 115. At their current win percentage, this club would finish 52-110.

Cedric Mullins went 1-for-4 last night with a first-inning single that was hit 100 mph off lefty Chris Sale. Mullins is batting .364 (47-for-179) in the first inning this season, and that is the most hits in the majors for a single inning.

Bowie closes in: The Double-A Bowie Baysox won for the 11th time in 12 games last night, beating Altoona 3-1 to close in on a playoff berth in the Double-A Northeast. If the Baysox go 1-1 in the last two games, they will get in. They could go 0-2 and get in if Akron losses the next two versus Somerset.

Patrick Dorrian hit a two-run homer, No. 21 for the Baysox. In going 11-1 in the last 12, Baysox pitchers have allowed just 28 runs.

Last night lefty Drew Rom pitched five perfect innings with seven strikeouts on 54 pitches. Rom has thrown 14 scoreless frames over his past three starts. The 21-year-old lefty is going to finish the regular season as the wins leader on the O's farm. Between high Single-A Aberdeen and Bowie, he is 11-1 with a 3.18 ERA. That is one more win than Bowie teammate Garrett Stallings has, and two more than Grayson Rodriguez's total.

Triple-A Norfolk beat Jacksonville 4-3, scoring twice in the last of the 10th on RBI singles by Zach Jarrett and Kyle Stowers. Stowers' hit was a walk-off winner. Right-hander Kyle Bradish allowed four hits and one unearned run in five innings.

Aberdeen blanked Greenville 1-0 as Zach Peek, Adam Stauffer and Garrett Farmer combined on the four-hitter. Peek threw the first five, allowing just two hits with six strikeouts. He is 4-0 with a 3.22 ERA. TT Bowens' solo homer provided the game's only run.

Low Single-A Delmarva routed Salem 13-4 as Coby Mayo homered and drove in four runs. Colton Cowser and Jacob Teter added three RBIs each. The Shorebirds are 19-9 since their roster added a large number of 2021 O's draft picks. And they have scored 210 runs in those games, averaging 7.5 per game. Delmarva has now scored a team record 706 runs for the season.

So it was a farm sweep last night in Birdland with wins for the Tides, Baysox, IronBirds and Shorebirds.

The four starting pitchers - Bradish, Rom, Peek and Carlos Tavera of Delmarva - combined to allow one earned run and eight hits over 18 1/3 innings with five walks and 25 strikeouts.

TIDES WALK IT OFF!!! @KyleStowers hits an RBI single to give Norfolk the extra innings win!!!

FINAL (10): Norfolk 4, Jacksonville 3 pic.twitter.com/tUA1SH4m6w

-- Norfolk Tides (@NorfolkTides) September 18, 2021