Levelheaded O's complete another dramatic win to avoid sweep

BALTIMORE -- Whenever manager Brandon Hyde walks through the Orioles’ clubhouse before a game -- whether it’s ahead of a day or a night contest, at home or on the road, coming off of either a win or a loss -- he notices his players’ confident demeanors remain the same. It’s a telltale sign of a good team.

“That’s a great attribute,” Hyde said. “For the guys that have been here through some tough years, I think they’re really excited to play, and they’ve come back from losses before. They’ve just got a great way about them.”

The mindset carries onto the field and stays no matter what happens out there. Even in more challenging times, such as Sunday afternoon’s eighth inning at Camden Yards.

Lights-out reliever Yennier Cano had a rare off showing and allowed the red-hot Rangers to tie the game. No problem. The O’s offense -- which had been mostly dormant since the first -- responded with an immediate rally, as Austin Hays delivered a go-ahead RBI single and lifted Baltimore to a bounce-back 3-2 win.

The Orioles (34-19) again have the second-best record in MLB, narrowly ahead of the Rangers (33-19). Baltimore avoided getting swept for the first time this year and halted its losing streak before it reached a season-high-tying three games.

There was never any panic.

“We feel like we have a chance to win every game, we’re never out of it,” Hays said. “We know at any point, we can chip away and really get a rally going. It was no different today. We knew we had a shot the whole game.”

Hays is among the Orioles’ veteran players who endured the tough times. He played 185 games from 2019-21, a stretch during which the team posted a .341 win percentage in its first three seasons under Hyde.

Now, Hays is enjoying the other side (the winning side) of Baltimore’s rebuild. And the 27-year-old outfielder is contributing to it in a big way.

With his 3-for-4 performance on Sunday -- which featured a pair of RBI singles and a triple -- Hays is batting .444 (12-for-27) with seven RBIs over his past seven games. His first run-scoring knock in the finale vs. Texas came during a two-run first, while his second came shortly after Cano gave up a two-out RBI double to Corey Seager in the eighth that tied the game at 2 -- only the third run allowed by Cano in 27 2/3 innings this year.

Hays leads the Orioles in batting average (.322), slugging percentage (.523) and OPS (.887).

“He is playing some great baseball,” Hyde said. “I like the way he’s using the whole field right now. The way he plays defense is special. And he’s taking great at-bats for us.”

Hays’ late heroics salvaged a mostly great day for a Baltimore pitching staff that cooled off a Texas offense averaging 6.1 runs per game this season (and 6.6 over its previous 26 games entering Sunday). Kyle Bradish allowed only one run over a season-high-tying 6 2/3 innings, while closer Félix Bautista struck out the side in a 1-2-3 ninth for his 13th save.

On May 5, the Orioles began a stretch of 22 consecutive games against teams that had winning records at that point (and all of them still do, except the 26-26 Pirates). Baltimore went 13-9 over that span, bookended by its only series losses of the month, as it also dropped two of three at Atlanta from May 5-7.

In between then and this weekend, the O’s notched series wins over the MLB-best Rays, Pirates, Blue Jays and Yankees, while splitting a set with the Angels.

“It was definitely a tough stretch, a lot of good teams,” Bradish said. “I think, moving forward, everybody knows that we’re legit this year, that last year wasn’t a fluke.”

The 83-win 2022 season is what Baltimore’s confidence stems from, of course. It also helps the O’s have gotten off to an impressive start this year. After posting a 19-9 record in March/April, they’ve already clinched another winning month in May, having gone 15-10 thus far.

Playing in a highly competitive American League East in which all five teams are above .500, the Orioles’ schedule never lightens up for long. Fortunately for them, their levelheaded approach helps them excel, even against top teams -- just like on Sunday.

“We played really well against tough competition,” Hays said. “Just proves to ourselves, if we didn’t already know it, that we can play with anybody in this league and we have a chance to win when we show up to the ballpark night in and night out.”