The Hess express rolls on in Frederick (plus O's homer notes)

Talk about turning around your season. Single-A Frederick right-hander David Hess is on a major roll right now. It all seemed to turn for him around June 20 when he had an ERA of 5.83 for the Keys.

But in 12 starts since then, Hess is 7-0 with a 1.34 ERA, allowing two earned runs or less in all 12 starts. In his latest outing on Tuesday, he pitched a seven-inning, one-hit shutout in Game 1 of a doubleheader at Potomac. It was the first career complete-game shutout for the pitcher who Orioles selected in the fifth round of the 2014 draft out of Tennessee Tech.

Hess, who turned 22 on July 10, is 4-0 with an ERA of 0.99 in five starts this month. He has seen his velocity tick up a notch this year and pitches mostly between 90 and 94 mph, sometimes touching the mid-90s. He features a four-pitch mix, also throwing a curve, slider and changeup.

Orioles director of player development Brian Graham talked about the improvement Hess has made this season. His ability to control and spot up his pitches has been big.

"Command and life are more important to a pitcher than velocity," Graham said. "Velocity is important, but at the major league level, everybody is going to hit velocity. But command and life, they are separators. They separate the mediocre and the good pitchers. When you talk about pitchers getting better, the number one thing you talk about is ability to command the baseball.

"He has certainly made good progress. The command of his fastball has improved. He can now throw his changeup for strikes even behind in the count. He is a curveball and slider guy, and the shape and command of both breaking pitches is improving.

"There are not a lot of pitchers that throw both the curve and slider. For now, they are both good pitches for him. We let him use both because both are weapons for him. David Hess is getting better and that is the idea of player development."

Hess is 9-4 with an ERA of 3.58 in 26 games on the season for Frederick. He ranks ninth in the Carolina League in ERA, third in strikeouts (110) and second in opponent average by a starter (.224).

During this recent impressive 12-start stretch, Hess has thrown 67 innings, allowing 43 hits and just one home run, with 26 walks to 55 strikeouts.

O's homer notes: How are the Orioles going to make up the 40 home runs they lost when Nelson Cruz signed with Seattle? That question was asked a lot this winter. Well, after hitting five homers last night, the 2015 Orioles are on a pace to out-homer last year's team. The club hit 211 homers last year and this year's team is now on a 215-homer pace. If the Orioles hit 200 or more this season, they will have four straight years of 200 or more home runs, and this team will have out-homered all of them if they reach 215. The 2012 Orioles hit 214 and the 2013 club hit 212.

Last night's five-homer game was the O's second-best night of the year for homers. It is behind only a record-breaking night when they hit a club-record eight on June 16 versus Philadelphia.

The Orioles have now hit two or more homers in 10 of the last 19 games and in 16 of their last 28 games. They are 12-4 in those 16 games, hitting 46 home runs in that 28-game span.