Baltimore Orioles player of the month: The Orioles have an ace up their sleeve

What a finish to the Baltimore Orioles regular season. They may have stumbled in the second half, but they finished on a high note. The Birds took two of three in New York against the Yankees and swept the Twins in Minnesota to finish the month 13-12. Their first winning month of the second half.

A big reason for the team's September success was ace pitcher Corbin Burnes. Burnes showed why he is one of the game's best pitchers and posted his best month of the season. He went 3-2 with a sparkling 1.20 ERA (sixth best in baseball for September) and struck out 31 batters in 30.0 innings.

Burnes opened the month against the lowly Chicago White Sox, who were well on their way to setting a new MLB record for losses in a single season, and finally started to return to form. After posting the worst month of his career in August, Burnes held the White Sox to two runs (one earned) over 5.0 innings to get his first win since August 4. He followed that up with his first quality start in four weeks when he held the Tampa Bay Rays to two runs over 6.0 innings.

Corbin Burnes stayed hot and led the Orioles through September

The highlight of the month was back to back dominant performances against the Detroit Tigers. With the Orioles losing ground in the race for the AL East title, the games against the Tigers became that much more important as the Birds fought for the top Wild Card spot. Over two games, Burnes pitched 14.0 innings against the Tigers and allowed just five total hits, zero runs and struck out 15 hitters. The O's were victorious on both occasions.

In his final start of the season, Burnes was dealing against the Yankees. He had struck out nine hitters over five innings and allowed only two hits (one of which was a Giancarlo Stanton solo homer), when he was pulled from the game. Even though the Yankees hadn't officially clinched the division, it was highly unlikely that even if Burnes had stayed in and the Orioles completed the sweep, that the Yankees would get swept in the following series.

Burnes finished the season fifth in the AL with 32 starts, third in innings pitched with 194.1, tenth in strikeouts with 181, and fifth in wins with a career high 15. To top off his incredible month, Burnes was named the game one starter for the O's as they take on the Kansas City Royals in the Wild Card round. Burnes will be making his third career playoff start and looking for his first career post season win.