O's notes on the offense, Vance Worley, Hyun Soo Kim and Mike Yastrzemski

HOUSTON - The Orioles' road trip has hit a road block. It began Friday night in Anaheim with back-to-back homers to start that game leading to a 9-4 win. The next night Matt Wieters hit a three-run blast in the ninth to win it.

Would that provide momentum for the O's to have a great road trip? Nope.

Over the last four games, the Orioles have scored 10 runs and struck out 58 times. Going back the last six games, O's batters have struck out 75 times. They have fanned 19 and 18 times at Minute Maid Park the past two nights, respectively. It can't be the oppressive humidity, since the roof has been closed the last two nights and it's 73 degrees inside.

The Orioles offense is too good for this to go on much longer. But right now, just making contact is an issue. The hitters are seeing a series of breaking pitches and changeups, and they will continue to see them until they start to do some damage against them.

* The only Oriole in the starting lineup to not strike out last night was also the only Oriole with three hits. It was outfielder Hyun Soo Kim who went 3-for-3 with a walk and two doubles and is now batting .438.

He's not playing much, but somehow Kim has made improvements during the season and certainly since spring training when he struggled.

"There's many, many things that I worked on, but the main thing was our hitting coach, Scott Coolbaugh, was talking to me about not doing too much when I'm up there," Kim said last night through his interpreter Danny Lee. "So try to stay as you're doing in the cage and in BP. Please take that into the game to make sure you perform just as you are, not overpowering. So he asked me that, and it turned out well today."

* The Vanimal is on a roll, but did anyone notice? I'll admit this stat snuck up on me: Vance Worley, who pitched two scoreless innings of relief last night, has now put together 20 consecutive scoreless innings. That is the second-longest streak in the majors behind Houston's Will Harris at 21 1/3 innings.

Worley's streak began when he threw four scoreless to end his second start of the year on April 15 at Texas. Since moving to the bullpen for an appearance on April 22, he has thrown 16 scoreless innings over 10 games. He has allowed four of nine inherited runners to score, but those are not charged to his record. He is 2-0 for the season with a 2.03 ERA over 26 2/3 innings.

* Orioles manager Buck Showalter is a keen observer of the Orioles' farm system, so you could be certain he has taken note of the fantastic start outfielder Mike Yastrzemski has gotten off to with Triple-A Norfolk.

Recently called up from Double-A Bowie, the grandson of Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski has played 10 games with the Tides. He is batting .405 with five doubles, a triple, two homers and seven RBIs. Over his last five games, he is 10-for-17. For the season, between Double-A and Triple-A, the younger Yaz is batting .299 with eight homers and 34 RBIs. He leads all O's minor leaguers in RBIs.

Showalter has gotten a few glowing reports on Yastrzemski from Norfolk manager Ron Johnson, who finally decided to temper his daily positive reviews.

"He's doing really well," Showalter said. "RJ was like, 'Listen, I'm going to slow down on this in the reports.' It's been really good so far.

"You know sometimes you take two or three games and I call it a positive feeding frenzy and you can also get a negative feeding frenzy. RJ likes him and he's doing very well so far. Mike's a guy, he has a little edge to him. He's going to show you. Probably like his granddaddy, right?"