O’s keep good times rolling with 5-homer rout

BALTIMORE — Take a trip into the Orioles’ clubhouse these days. If it’s a win, you might not actually be able to see much. Smoke machines fill the room, your only source of light the strobe lights atop John Means’ locker and another couple by Cionel Pérez’s and Keegan Akin’s. Music tends to fill the rest of the capacity. Even after a loss, there’s not much pouting, not many worries that one down result will snowball.

On the heels of the last several years, there’s only good vibes to emanate.

Club Camden was bouncing once again on Saturday night, the Orioles’ five-homer output — featuring two from Ryan Mountcastle — pushing them to a fourth consecutive victory, 8-1 over the Athletics, and a sixth consecutive series win. In doing so, Baltimore made itself the first team in AL/NL history to win more than 70 games after finishing each of the previous three full seasons with 100-plus losses.

“It’s fun to see, after the years we’ve had, to see the music up loud, guys enjoying themselves,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “It’s a great atmosphere. Really happy for all of our players.”

Even more invigorating is what the results continue to bolster. The Orioles’ victory on Saturday kept them on pace with the Blue Jays in the postseason hunt, maintaining just a 1 1/2-game deficit for the third and final AL Wild Card spot. On the other end, they have created a little breathing room from the team behind them, as they are now 3 1/2 games over the Twins. (If Baltimore was in the AL Central, they’d be leading the division.)

Monday — the start of a four-game series featuring a doubleheader against the Blue Jays — will give the Orioles their firmest of chances to try and carve their destiny. 

But that’s an issue for another day. On Sunday, the Orioles can sweep their first series since their set in Texas that wrapped around a Trade Deadline that drastically altered their team. They still went 17-10 in August, and they are undefeated through three September contests.

And bolstering such confidence is the positive signs they received on Saturday. Chief among them was Mountcastle, their power-happy first baseman who was anything but that the past two months. Exit velocity sunken, Mountcastle owned an OPS of just .589 across 49 contests from July to August.

He now has hits in each of his first three September contests, and homers in two.

“Nothing crazy,” Mountcastle said. “I don’t know. Just putting good swings on it finally.”

“He’s doing it at the right time,” Hyde said.

And when you’re joined by homers from Cedric Mullins, Anthony Santander and Adley Rutschman, it’s hard to be disappointed. All signs seem to show that the Orioles are clicking at the right time.

“For me to start picking it up now is big for me and the team,” Mountcastle said. “It seems like a lot of the guys on the team right now are swinging it well, too.”

DL Hall was busy in his return to Triple-A Norfolk after his uneven MLB debut against the Rays on Aug. 13. He had a new role to learn, an experience to build off of. But that day still simmered inside him.

Hall was sharp in his debut out of the bullpen on Saturday — which was also his debut at Camden Yards five years after signing there as a first-round pick. His yell and pound into his glove after striking out Shea Langeliers with a 98.2 mph fastball was emphatic for one reason in particular.

“I was fired up,” Hall said. “I feel like I’ve been sitting on [the experience in] Tampa for three weeks and just itching to get back up there and show what I can do.”

As confident as the Orioles are in Hall, they’re fascinated to see what he can provide out of the bullpen, this is his first time doing so in a prolonged stretch in his career. The club’s No. 6 prospect will be asked to do multiple innings going forward, but Saturday was a chance to whet his appetite for what the role entails.

He responded with two strikeouts — and he was just inches away from punching out the side.

“That was electric stuff, that was fantastic,” Hyde said. “He’s got a big arm, so nice to have him available the last month.”

“That’s electric stuff,” echoed A’s manager Mark Kotsay.

So in a lot of ways, Saturday was like a re-debut.

“Especially being here at Camden Yards and feeling that crowd’s energy tonight is unbelievable,” Hall said. “Ever since I signed here, that’s what I’ve been itching to do.”