Heading into 2021, the foundation of the Orioles rotation looks more or less set. John Means remains at the top, having endured but righted an up-and-down '20 season. Then there is Alex Cobb, who will be entering the final year of his four-year, $57 million contract. Highly-touted prospects Dean Kremer and Keegan Akin probably get cracks at the next two spots, after impressive debuts down the stretch this year.

Then there is the fifth slot, and the several potential candidates for that spot and other depth ranks.

At this point, how exactly Jorge López factors in isn’t quite clear. What’s certain is Friday's performance didn’t exactly help the right-hander’s case. López surrendered a career-high eight earned runs over two innings in his final audition for the 2021 rotation, sending the Orioles to a 10-5 loss to the Blue Jays at Sahlen Field.

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“Tonight snowballed,” López said.

Eliminated from postseason contention, the Orioles are in evaluation mode again as this 60-game schedule draws to an end this weekend. One of their focuses of the offseason will be assessing the performance of players like López, who was acquired off waivers from the Royals on Aug. 9, and went 2-2 with a 6.34 ERA in nine appearances (six starts). López pitched to a 6.14 ERA in those starts, allowing three earned runs or fewer in four, but five or more in two others.

“Tonight he just got hit,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “Tonight was just a night where he had a tough time staying out of the middle in hitters' counts. He just couldn’t put guys away. For the most part he’s pitched well here. It is unfortunate he finished the season with this start, because I feel like there are a lot of positives he’s shown throughout this past month.”

If there is a most concerning aspect to López’s game, it is the amount of hard-contact he allows. Though all of Toronto’s runs off him -- except Randal Grichuk’s solo homer -- came on singles or sacrifice flies, all of the nine hits López allowed Friday exceeded Statcast’s hard-hit threshold. The righty ranks in MLB’s bottom two percentile in opponent exit velocity and hard-hit percentage this season, per Statcast.

“I feel like I have to keep improving,” López said. “I know I need to show more to show I can be that consistent guy.”

To do that, López said he is considering playing winter ball with an eye toward putting some of the mechanical adjustments the Orioles have preached to him over these past few weeks into practice. They see upside in the stuff: the mid-90s sinker, the four-seamer that’s reached as high as 98 mph at times, plus a curve and a changeup. They are not the first team to dream on López; the Brewers made him a second round Draft pick in 2011, then traded him to the Royals for Mike Moustakas in '18.

“I am the student and they are my teachers,” López said. “I never knew how good I could be with the little things they showed me, that I can improve on every day.”

The upside alone probably puts López in a dogfight next spring to prove himself alongside prospects such as Bruce Zimmermann, potentially Michael Baumann, Zac Lowther and others, all of whom could battle for that fifth starter job. The Orioles are also likely to bring depth options like Thomas Eshelman and others to camp with an eye toward cultivating a competitive environment; the smart money is on López being a part of that mix.

There is, though, an upcoming roster crunch the Orioles are anticipating, with at least four top prospects to protect from the Rule 5 Draft (Yusniel Diaz, Baumann, Lowther and Alexander Wells) and three impact players (Trey Mancini, Kohl Stewart and Richie Martin) to reinstate from the injured list. López’s service time makes him vulnerable to such a crunch; he is not arbitration eligible until 2022, but is out of Minor League options. Like many other Orioles, it’ll be an interesting and important offseason for the right-hander.

“I like the adjustments he’s made since he’s gotten here,” Hyde said. “I feel like tonight wasn’t his night. But he’s made some really good starts for us. And we do like his stuff.”