O's are settling in with speed atop the lineup

We have seen it for five games now: center fielder Cedric Mullins as the Orioles leadoff batter and followed in the batting order by infielder Jonathan Villar hitting second.

It certainly provides the Orioles with the kind of speed at the top of the order that we have not seen often in recent years. To this point the duo has not had either a significant impact or impressive stats batting at the top of the order. But the sample is small and I'm all for seeing more of it and seeing what those two players can make happen on the bases with their speed. See how much pressure they can put on opposing defenses.

Mullins is batting just .227 (5-for-22) batting leadoff and Villar is hitting only .192 (5-for-26) batting second. But so what? That doesn't mean anything with just 37 at-bats between them in those games.

The Orioles haven't often had so called "table-setters" at the top of their lineup regularly for a while. Maybe Mullins will settle in and run with it in the leadoff spot as Brian Roberts did for so many years. Like Roberts, Mullins is a smaller switch-hitter with speed who can put pressure on the defense.

Mullins and Villar are both switch-hitters, and it doesn't hurt having that atop the order either. Mullins was thrown out on his only steal attempt with the Orioles. But on the farm this year he went 21-for-22, going 9-for-10 in steal attempts with Double-A Bowie and 12-for-12 at Triple-A Norfolk. Villar led the National League in steals in 2016. This year he is stealing bases successfully 90 percent of the time. He went 14-for-16 with Milwaukee and is 4-for-4 with the Orioles. That is a lot of success stealing this year for those two players.

Maybe the stolen base will be returning to the Orioles. They ranked last in the American League in team steals in 2017 with just 32. That was 21 fewer than the next-to-last Blue Jays had. This year the Orioles are 12th with 48, and 20 have come from Craig Gentry and Jace Peterson. I think that shows us that manager Buck Showalter is not against the stolen-base attempt. He just likes to have players who can actually do it successfully.

But what we have not seen much of yet but likely will in the remaining games is what speed at the top or the order could mean. Mullins and Villar can go first to third on singles more than most. They can turn weak grounders into infield hits. They'll spoil few rallies by hitting into double plays and they can turn bloops that look like singles into doubles. As they say, speed doesn't go into a slump.

The one game in which the duo was a big factor in the offense was last Saturday, when they combined to score three runs and drive in four in the Orioles' 4-2 win at Cleveland. But in that game they both homered, and that is not really the impact we are talking about.

But it is nice to have that speed at the top or the order, as the Orioles need to look for more ways to score moving forward than just by hitting home runs.

Baysox All-Stars: Double-A Bowie has placed left-handed pitcher Keegan Akin and infielder/DH Corban Joseph on the Eastern League postseason All-Star team. The team is voted on by league managers, coaches and media.

Akin is in line to become the sixth pitcher in league history to win the pitching equivalent of the Triple Crown in leading the league in wins, ERA and strkeouts. Akin is 14-6 with a 2.77 ERA and 135 strikeouts in 130 innings. He also ranks second in the league with a .209 opponent average, fourth in WHIP (1.184) and fifth in innings. Akin is 6-0 with a 2.34 ERA in seven starts since the All-Star game. He is a top contender for the Orioles' Jim Palmer Award, which goes to their minor league Pitcher of the Year.

Joseph made the team at the DH spot. He is batting .314/.378/.490 with 28 doubles, one triple, 15 homers, 68 runs, 63 RBIs and with an .869 OPS in 113 games. Joseph is the Eastern League's leading hitter and ranks second in hits and OPS. He was also a midseason All-Star. The brother of Caleb Joseph, Corban got called up to the majors for a brief period in June.

Hall's streak is still going: At short season Single-A Aberdeen, infielder Adam Hall went 1-for-4 last night to extend his hitting streak to 14 games. Aberdeen beat Staten Island 6-2 to improve to 31-32.

During this streak, Hall is batting .408 (20-for-49) with three doubles, one triple, one homer, 10 runs and 11 stolen bases. Hall has improved his average from .228 to .276 during the streak and he's stolen those 11 bases in his past nine games.

The 19-year-old Hall was drafted in the second round by the Orioles last year out of a high school in Canada. In late June in Aberdeen, I interviewed him and provided this profile.