As arbitrary time frames go, this is some of my finest work.

Tuesday marks a month since the day we can truly say the Orioles started to turn things around, perhaps for good — but not before sneaking in one more loss.

After coughing up the first half of a doubleheader at Fenway Park, the Orioles designated Cionel Pérez for assignment, gave Trevor Rogers his first start, then went out and beat the Red Sox to kick off what has been a month of baseball that has hardly resembled the nearly two months that came before it.

They entered that day 16-33 and were a season-worst 16-34 after the first game of the doubleheader. I badly want to take out that afternoon loss from this analysis, and if I was able to, I would. This is our house, we make the rules, as Taylor Swift said.

Unfortunately, I can only do that at the surface level, and another rule here is we do not traffic in the surface level. So we’ll just say since May 24 broadly, and even with that, we can say in the 29 games since — over a third of their season — the Orioles have been 18-11 (.620, a 101-win pace).

It’s probably somewhere in between the makings of a real turnaround and an incredibly high dead cat bounce, but a couple of key factors have gone into it.

Starting pitching improvement

The rotation wore a lot of the blame for the bad part of this Orioles season, so they have to get credit for what has been better. They’ve allowed three runs or fewer in 21 of these 29 games, and while some of those starts were short and inefficient and some were openers, the Orioles still won 16 of those games. They don’t win all the games they get a good start in, but they most certainly don’t have it in them yet to win any slugfests where they go down early, and the rotation is holding up its end of the deal in keeping the team in it.

Individual improvement has had a lot to do with that. Regression from Tomoyuki Sugano and Zach Eflin has been more than balanced out by Rogers (1.62 ERA in three starts), Charlie Morton (2.42 ERA over the last calendar month) and Dean Kremer (3.15 ERA in that span.

Back-end bullpen stability

There are a handful of games in which the bullpen has completely given the game away, and as with any loss when you’re trying to dig out of a hole in the standings like this, you’re going to remember them. But the key trio of Félix Bautista, Seranthony Domínguez and Gregory Soto have combined to allow three earned runs with a 0.81 WHIP and 56 strikeouts in 36 innings over the last month. A few hiccups from Bryan Baker and Andrew Kittredge have obscured overall good months from them, and Keegan Akin has come through in big moments. As a group, things have been going well.

An average offense…

No one reading this is going to drop their device in shock as I say I ascribe most of the blame for the team’s early offensive struggles to injuries. As June has progressed and the team has gotten healthy, the lineup has obviously improved.

Overall, we’re talking about a middle-of-the-pack offense for the last month: 4.2 runs per game, a .714 OPS that’s 17th-best in baseball in that span, and a 103 wRC+, just a few ticks above the league average. None of it is great, but through May 23, they scored 3.83 runs per game with a .689 OPS and a 96 wRC+. It hasn’t been super consistent, but the path from bad to good is a progressive one.

… that has situationally improved

It helps that the Orioles are getting better in the offensive facets that killed them in the first two months. They had a .559 OPS against lefties on May 23 and were basically an automatic loss whenever they faced a left-handed starter, no matter how good he was. They also hit .213 with a .633 OPS and 77 wRC+ with runners in scoring position. In the last month, both have swung in a better direction. The Orioles have a .241 average, .752 OPS, and 106 wRC+ with runners in scoring position, and they’ve won their last four games against southpaw starters and have a .714 OPS off lefties in the last month. It’s all a lot better.

Taken collectively, these things explain why the Orioles are no longer losing at an alarming rate. I’m not sure if any of it indicates they can dig themselves out of this hole. But this is the scaffolding they’re building to do so.

On the pod

Kyle Goon joined Paul and me for this week’s Banner Baseball Show to talk about the pending trade deadline, which was obviously a loaded conversation given all the directions the team could go. I kind of stand where I was last week in that they’ll make decisions based on the opportunities and the market rather than how close they are to .500. It was a fun discussion to float that to the guys.

Ballpark chatter

“We understand the business side of things. That doesn’t stop us from fighting.”

— Cedric Mullins on the Orioles’ in-between status approaching the trade deadline.

Speaking of trade deadline chatter, it’s naturally reached the Orioles clubhouse. Interim manager Tony Mansolino alluded to it last homestand, and now we’re about five weeks out from the deadline with the Orioles in basically the same position they’ve been for the last couple of weeks: better but not close enough to make a difference. It’s still better than before.

By the numbers

1.032

Since Gary Sánchez was activated off the injured list on June 14, he has a 1.032 OPS in 23 at-bats, which includes some outperformance over his expected stats, to be fair, but also a lot to be encouraged about.

He’s making more contact than he did before his wrist injury and much better contact; prior to hitting the injured list on April 28, Sánchez was hitting the ball hard but getting under it a bit. Now, he’s hitting it harder at better angles and striking out far less. He’s also the team’s best hitter with runners in scoring position — albeit in just nine at-bats — with four hits and a 1.349 OPS. His next contract probably depends on how this month as the primary catcher goes. I think it might go well.

On the farm

It’s been an uneven year on the mound for the Orioles’ pitching prospects, with some serious breakouts and frustrating injuries and even injuries to their breakout arms, but I want to use this space to say that Michael Forret is still really good. And his return to the mound after a back issue is a very good thing for the Orioles.

The 21-year-old right-hander struck out six in eight innings over two starts last week, yielding just three hits and a walk. I was up in Aberdeen on Tuesday and felt the way he used his fast pitch mix — headlined by a good fastball with a sweeper, cutter, and kick-change — remains precocious. He’s striking out 11.5 batters per nine with a 0.65 WHIP and a 1.34 ERA in 33 2/3 innings for the Ironbirds this year. I can’t imagine he’s there for much longer.

For further reading

🏟️Camden Yards changes: I was glad to see two things in this article from Danielle. One was the acknowledgement that the Orioles’ stadium experience was outdated and poor. The other is that not all the new features will stay. It’s going to be a balance figuring out what to keep and what to get rid of, but any change is progress at this point.

🖤Luis Guevara’s death: All my Banner colleagues have done a great job covering the incredibly sad story of Orioles minor league Luis Guevara’s death, including this well-reported look from Liana Handler.