O's game blog: Alexander Wells faces K.C. at the Yard

The Orioles send another rookie lefty to the mound tonight as they host the Kansas City Royals in the second of a four-game series and 11-game homestand. The Royals scored twice in the eighth Monday afternoon to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead and beat the Orioles by that score in the series opener.

The Orioles fell to 34-6 when leading after seven innings. The Royals improved to 5-62 when trailing after seven.

The Orioles (43-93) have now played five straight one-run games. This started Wednesday night when they lost 5-4 at Toronto. That was followed by Friday's 4-3 loss in the Bronx in 11 innings. Then the O's won there 4-3 on Saturday and 8-7 Sunday before Monday's game against the Royals. The Orioles are now 10-20 in one-run games.

Baltimore is now 2-2 this year against Kansas City, 8-23 in games versus the American League Central and 4-9 at home versus that division. The Orioles are 19-45 at home, 14-31 in series-opening games and 27-34 when scoring first.

Alexander Wells (1-2, 7.71 ERA) will be making his seventh major league appearance tonight, his first since a one-inning bullpen outing Aug. 10 versus Detroit. His last big league start was Aug. 3 at New York, when he allowed six runs and seven hits in 2 1/3 innings at Yankee Stadium.

Wells' season got off to a slow start, due to an oblique injury, and he had a 9.88 ERA in May at Triple-A Norfolk. But over the season, through 13 games there, he is 6-3 with a 3.29 ERA with the Tides. His last three games in August produced 11 2/3 scoreless innings and he gave up just five hits. He was held to a two-inning outing in his last appearance on Aug. 28. So, not only is he pitching on nine days' rest tonight, but he's thrown just two innings since Aug. 22.

On Monday lefty Zac Lowther recorded his first career quality start, allowing three hits and one run in six innings, in his longest outing of the year at any level. Lowther has completed six innings 27 times across four minor league seasons, most recently on Sept. 1, 2019 in his final start of the year with Double-A Bowie. The O's had gone seven games without a quality start, and Lowther's effort produced the club's 27th QS of the 2021 season.

Cedric Mullins, who was the DH Monday, launched his 26th home run of the season to right field in the fifth inning, giving the Orioles a 2-1 lead. It was the first homer of his career to come while playing a position other than center field. Mullins had not homered against the Royals since the first time he faced them on Aug. 31, 2018 at Kansas City. He's now homered in back-to-back games for the fifth time this season. The most recent was Aug. 7-8. Mullins led off the first inning with a double, his 33rd of the year. His 44 first-inning hits are the most in the majors, and entering yesterday, his 17 first-inning extra-base hits put him in a tie with Shohei Ohtani (LAA) for the most in the majors. Mullins has produced an extra-base hit in a career-high three straight games for the sixth time this season.

O's left fielder Austin Hays extended his career-long hitting streak to 13 games with an RBI single up the middle in the third inning, scoring catcher Austin Wynns to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead. Entering Monday, Hays' was tied for the second-longest active hit streak in the majors behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s 13-game streak. Hays is batting .375 (18-for-48) during his current hit streak with four doubles, one triple, two home runs, nine RBIs, nine runs scored, and two walks.

Kansas City's starter is 24-year-old lefty Jackson Kowar (0-2, 9.82 ERA) who will be making his fifth career big league appearance and fourth start. In his first three games in June he allowed 10 runs in five innings. But he recorded a quality start when he returned to the majors last Wednesday against Cleveland. Over six innings he gave up five hits and two runs on 94 pitches.

In that game he threw 50 four-seam fastballs that averaged 96.2 mph and topped at 98. He added 34 changeups with an average velocity of 86.8 mph and 10 sliders. He got 13 whiffs on 44 swings versus Cleveland, including on five of 14 changeups and eight of 27 fastballs.

In 17 Triple-A starts this year he is 9-4 with a 3.46 ERA and 1.240 WHIP for Omaha. He walked 3.8 per nine and fanned 12.8 per nine and leads Triple-A in strikeouts.

Kowar was one of four pitchers the Royals took in the first 40 picks of the 2018 draft. He was selected No. 33 overall out of the University of Florida.

With his big league debut on June 7 in Anaheim, Kowar became the fifth player selected by the Royals in that 2018 draft to make his major league debut, joining Brady Singer (18th overall), Daniel Lynch (34th overall), Kris Bubic (40th overall) and Kyle Isbel (3rd round). According to Elias Sports Bureau, the 2021 Royals are the fourth team in the last 27 seasons - and first since 1995 - to have four different homegrown pitchers from the same draft class start a game in the same season. They joined the 2018 Cardinals, 1995 White Sox and 1995 Mets. Since the first year of the draft, 1965, there have been 14 instances of a team selecting at least four pitchers in the first round and, according to ESPN Stats & Info, the Royals are the first of those teams to have four first-round picks from the same draft class pitch for them in the major leagues.

Earlier today I published some quotes in this space from Mike Baumann, who got his first call to the bigs earlier today. Big Mike is now an Oriole.