The Pérez/Holt connection, a new top 100 and other notes

Last night was not his best effort – lefty Cionel Pérez walked two of the three batters he faced in the Seattle sixth inning – but overall he has had a big year for the Orioles this season out of the bullpen.

A waiver claim from the Cincinnati Reds in November, Pérez entered that outing last night having allowed just one run and 15 hits over 16 1/3 innings with seven walks to 17 strikeouts. His fastball is averaging 96 mph and he touched 97.5 in the game Wednesday night when he threw 1 1/3 scoreless and was the winning pitcher against the Mariners.

But he gave up one run in just 1/3 of an inning last night and his ERA increased to 1.08.

Before last night’s game Pérez mentioned that one reason he has had a nice comfort zone with the Orioles is his previous relationship with O’s pitching coach Chris Holt. When both were in the Houston organization, Pérez had Holt for his pitching coach when he was with high Single-A Buies Creek in the 2017 season.

“He has been a big help,” Pérez said through O’s interpreter Brandon Quinones about Holt before Thursday’s game. “Now that we are both here together he keeps me in check with my movement on the ball and if something is off with my delivery, he lets me know that and we work together with getting on the same page. Plus we are a big team here within the bullpen and if anyone notices something is off with another pitcher in delivery or whatever, we let each other know.”

O’s skipper Brandon Hyde has shown a lot of confidence in Pérez this year and said it is nice for Pérez that he has that previous experience working with Holt.

“Well I think probably just comfort (is what it means for him),” Hyde said. “I’m really close with Derek Johnson, the pitching coach in Cincinnati. When we got him off waivers, he called me right away. He said, ‘You’re going to love this guy. This guy has an enormous upside and it just didn’t quite happen here.’ He was happy he was going to get a fresh start and a great opportunity with us. I think that Cionel coming over here and having Chris here was extremely helpful. Think some of the people that signed him internationally are here.

“He’s been really good since the first day of spring training. We had questions on his strike-throwing ability. It was never about the stuff, it was about will this guy be able to land enough strikes? And he has, so far, so good for us.”

Last night’s 7-6 loss to Seattle in 10 innings was just the third loss by Baltimore in nine rubber match games this season. Tonight the Orioles welcome Cleveland to town to begin a three-game weekend series.

Tough sledding: According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Orioles have had the third-toughest strength of schedule in MLB across their first 52 games, through Wednesday. The opponents the Orioles have played in this span have a combined .543 winning percentage and only the Philadelphia Phillies (.553) and Washington Nationals (.545) have faced opponents with a better combined winning percentage to begin the season.

The Orioles have played 32 games against teams with a winning record, the most in MLB and four games more than the next closest team which was Philadelphia at 28. Baltimore has gone 13-19 in these games. And the Orioles have only played 20 games against teams with a losing record, the fewest in MLB.

New top 100: The editors and writers at Baseball America provided a fresh update to their top 100 prospects list on Thursday. They still have O’s catcher Adley Rutschman as the No. 1 prospect in baseball, ahead of Tigers outfielder Riley Greene and O’s pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez moved up one spot from fourth to third.

Double-A Bowie infielder Gunnar Henderson, having a huge year for the Baysox, moved up several spots from No. 56 to No. 37. Lefty DL Hall, now pitching at Triple-A Norfolk, dropped two spots from No. 50 to No. 52. So four in the top 52 for the Orioles in the latest from Baseball America.