Before Sunday’s series finale, Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino unveiled a new nickname for his starting pitcher: “Day-game Deano.” In reality, right-hander Dean Kremer has a lower career ERA in night games, but perhaps Mansolino was on to something.

Kremer lived up to his new moniker as the midday sun streamed down on Camden Yards when he produced his best start of the season against the Tampa Bay Rays. By twirling seven scoreless frames, Kremer set the groundwork for a key series win, which stabilized the club after a helter-skelter opening two games of the weekend.

Baltimore won the first game of the series in blowout fashion, then lost Saturday’s contest by a lopsided score. In Sunday’s 5-1 victory, the Orioles (36-47) looked more like the all-around solid club of expectations than the up-and-mostly-down team that has been present for much of 2025.

“The hardest thing in this game is to be consistent and kind of rolling with the punches, sitting on the highs and just putting the lows aside and moving on to the next day,” Kremer said. “We definitely feel when we win big, and we definitely feel when we lose by a lot. But, again, tomorrow’s another day and we’ve got to compete every day. You can’t just give in.”

Before their flight to Texas for another series against the Rangers, the Orioles put together one of their most efficient performances of the season. They finished 4-for-12 with runners in scoring position and held a Rays team that is in good wild-card standing off balance. In doing so, Baltimore won its third series of the month — a pace that hasn’t gotten the Orioles seriously back into the postseason conversation.

They are 20-13 since the second game played May 24, which is a positive page in a chapter that thus far has been a disappointment. Even with this upturn in form, however, there are six teams ahead of the Orioles in the chase for the final wild-card spot. Should Baltimore continue this improvement, perhaps general manager Mike Elias won’t sell off expiring contracts ahead of the July 31 trade deadline.

Either way, consistency has been hard to come by, and this three-game sample was a microcosm of those issues. Baltimore overcame a six-run hole Friday and erupted for 22 runs, then was thoroughly handled in an 11-3 loss that featured a one-inning appearance from right-hander Zach Eflin due to back tightness.

That only increased the importance of Kremer’s strong start.

“We needed it, especially with that long game yesterday,” Ramón Laureano said. “It’s super key for us, and he’s been doing a good job.”

Kremer has been stable despite the lack of team success. He extended his streak of starts with at least five innings pitched to 13, which ties the longest mark of his major league career.

Early in the campaign, when Kremer got off to a rocky beginning, the long ball was a major issue. He allowed seven homers in his first five games. But Kremer set a career-long streak of seven starts without a home run against him (the two homers June 12 came after he entered as a reliever in the second inning).

Kremer avoided that topic in his postgame interview, saying it would be “bad karma” for him to acknowledge such a streak. Acknowledging it or not, Kremer has improved.

“This whole thing, it comes down, when our starters throw the ball good, we hit better, we play better defense, we win games,” Mansolino said. “And I think all 30 teams are that way. I don’t think it’s unique to us. As our starters go, we kind of go.”

For much of the game, pitch-track data was unavailable due to an extreme-heat-induced power outage in the MLB equipment room at Camden Yards. It didn’t take spin rate numbers on Statcast to know Kremer was dealing, though. He recorded six strikeouts with one walk and three hits.

Kremer has once before thrown seven shutout innings this year, doing so with three hits, a walk and two strikeouts against the Kansas City Royals in April. This time, he added more swing and miss to his outing.

By keeping the ball in the yard, Kremer has righted his season. He also gave the Orioles every opportunity to extend a lead, and they took it. Kremer had an early advantage with which to work when Colton Cowser’s opposite-field single plated Laureano, and two runs each in the fifth and sixth innings made it comfortable.

“When you’re able to stay in the game the way we were, it’s different,” Mansolino said of the success against right-hander Taj Bradley. “You get a chance to wear down the pitcher a little bit. There’s more pressure on him every pitch he throws versus being down 9-0. Again, it goes back to being in the game with the starting pitcher.”

Coby Mayo, who has looked much more comfortable this month as his playing time increases, produced the third of three straight singles to begin the fifth — and for a second time, third-base coach Buck Britton’s aggressive no-out send of a runner from second paid off with a run.

And in the sixth Gary Sánchez’s single scored Ryan O’Hearn. For Sánchez, his June numbers are reflective of his resurgence after a slow start to his time in Baltimore. Sánchez is hitting 15-for-42 (.357) with 15 RBIs since returning from the injured list June 14.

Cowser also saved at least a run when he rose up at the left-field wall to rob Danny Jansen of a would-be two-run homer in the eighth. That helped maintain the shutout until Brandon Lowe’s ninth-inning homer off right-hander Félix Bautista, and Baltimore can board a flight to Texas knowing it didn’t lose ground in a push toward postseason relevancy.

“Every divisional series win is beneficial and advantageous down the road,” Kremer said. “If we get into a spot where we’re competing for a wild-card spot, we get to hold it over their head down the stretch. So it’s big winning all of our divisional games.”

They didn’t gain ground, though. The Orioles finished the homestand at 3-3 — a respectable mark but not one that will allow them to climb completely out of a hole that was of their own making.

This article has been updated.