This O's trio continues to do it all amid streak

Night after night, the Orioles keep defying expectations. Night after night, the improvement from their young players is plain to see.

How are they doing it? The list of those responsible is long, full of players packing some of the best baseball of their lives into this 60-game sprint of a season. But focusing on the main contributors from Wednesday’s 5-4 victory over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park paints a nice part of the picture, and it explains the mechanisms behind their current four-game winning streak -- two victories before and two following Sunday's suspended game against the Nationals, which will be completed on Friday.

• Box score

“It seems like good teams have different guys on different nights,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “Right now, that’s what we have.”

Lately, it’s been the bats. As of Wednesday's final out, the Orioles were the American League’s top hitting team in terms of average, and ranked second in both on-base and slugging percentage. They were paced on Wednesday by solo homers from Anthony Santander, Rio Ruiz and Chance Sisco -- three young bats who’ve emerged to make Baltimore’s offense scary against right-handers in particular. Ruiz also made a game-saving play to corral an Andrew McCutchen grounder and stamp out the Phillies’ best threat in the eighth that, tweeting from home, O's legend Jim Palmer called “the play of the year.”

“The word I used was stellar,” Hyde said. “These are guys that are improving defensively, but improving big-time offensively as well.”

The trio's latest victim was Zach Eflin, who struck out 10 but allowed the solo shots to Santander in the third and Ruiz in the fifth, on top of Sisco’s two-run single in the fourth. Sisco then cranked his second homer of the year off reliever Adam Morgan in the seventh, and five O’s relievers helped the club survive its second consecutive abbreviated start from Wade LeBlanc. With the win, Baltimore secured its fourth series victory in six tries this season. The club won just nine series in 2019.

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“You’re starting to see a plan at the plate and some confidence in knowing you can succeed at this level,” said LeBlanc, who allowed three runs in 3 1/3 innings. “That’s always exciting to see in young guys, and these guys are doing a hell of a job of doing that.”

The numbers tell a similar story. Santander’s towering homer was his fourth of the year, struck with the highest launch angle of any O's homer this year. He’s now driven in a run in six straight contests; his 16 RBIs were tied with Mike Trout for fifth in the AL by last out on Wednesday. Ruiz’s homer was his fourth in 11 games after mustering just 12 a year ago. Sisco is now 8-for-21 (.381) with six walks and an OPS sitting around 1.300, having swung his way into a more regular role alongside Pedro Severino.

For Sisco and Ruiz in particular, the success is sweetened by how it's coming simultaneously. The two worked out together regularly during quarantine in Florida this spring, knowing that when baseball did resume, it would be the beginning of a big year for both of them. Sisco also credits the work he put in this winter to learning from renowned hitting instructor Craig Wallenbrock the year prior, as he's revamped his swing with an eye toward driving the baseball more often. Now in 2020, he and Ruiz are doing just that.

“Every single day he would come to my house and we would lift, then we’d go to the local field and get our [hitting] in,” Sisco said. “Honestly, it was really good for both of us to get that work in together. We bounced ideas off each other and helped each other in a lot of areas.”