Notes on the offense and O's strong play in AL East

For the Orioles offense, there was no June swoon last year. The opposite, in fact. The Orioles went 19-9 last June despite a team ERA that was 4.85. They did it with offense. A lot of it.

They began June 2017 with a lot of offense. The Orioles hit four homers last night in a 7-5 win over Boston.

Can the Orioles have another big June with the bats? Let's look at last year.

O's batting for the year: .256 average, .317 OBP, .443 slugging, 4.59 runs/gm, 1.56 homers/game

O's batting last June: .300 average, .357 OBP, .531 slugging, 6.61 runs/gm, 2.00 homers/game

The Orioles and Yankees are the only two teams in the American League East that have winning records in games played within the division.

.645 - Orioles (20-11)
.583 - New York (14-10)
.455 - Boston (10-12)
.448 - Tampa Bay (13-16)
.346 - Toronto (9-17)

Last night's winning pitcher, Wade Miley, and Mark Trumbo, who homered in the first inning, had somewhat different answers when discussing if AL East games take on more importance.

Miley said: "Sure. We gotta win these games to play in the postseason. These games are very important. Obviously, you want to get up for every game, and yeah, these are extra important."

Trumbo said: "No, not really. Every game is equally as important. We know, obviously these games in division obviously matter a lot. At least my own mentality thinks they matter the same."

Miley gave up just one run over seven innings and finally got his second win of the year. Even though the Orioles are 6-5 in his 11 starts, Miley had not won since April 14th until last night.

"I was just glad that we won," he said. "If I win, we win as a team, but at the same time, I just want to win ballgames. We're looking to get into the postseason, make a run at these things and it doesn't matter who gets the W as long as we get it."

Heading into the final game of the series against the Yankees on Wednesday, the Orioles had scored 15 runs the previous seven games with five homers. Now, in the past two games, they have 24 hits, 17 runs and six homers.

"Everybody knows what this offense is capable of doing," Miley said. "It definitely takes a lot of pressure off the pitching staff, but we still have to go out and do our jobs. That's when you get on a roll, when the pitchers are pitching good and we're swinging the bats like we're swinging right now. I mean, the opportunity is there."

And the Orioles again remained calm in the clubhouse during a recent stretch that had some members of their fanbase hitting the panic button. The O's went 3-13 from May 10 through last Sunday at Houston. Now they've gone 3-1 against the Yankees and Red Sox. A good time to turn it around, for sure.

"I think we always think we're on track," second baseman Jonathan Schoop said after hitting his eighth homer. "We believe in each other. Even when we're down, we think we're on track all the time. No one can put us down. We keep it up and come back tomorrow and try to win."