Baltimore Orioles player of the week: The Cow came home

It was another up and down week for the Baltimore Orioles. After dropping a heart breaking series against the New York Mets, the Birds returned home and split a four game series against the AL West leading Houston Astros. While Anthony Santander and Jackson Holliday had the biggest moments, it was Colton Cowser who seemed to be in the middle of everything all week long.

The Milkman got off to a fast start in New York. After picking up a hit in his first at-bat of the week, Cowser swiped his eigthth bag of the season, but was stranded there. He wouldn't factor much more into game one of the series, but game two would be a different story.

In his first at-bat of game two, Cowser hammered a ball to deep left field. Mets left fielder, Brandon Nimmo had a beat on the ball and he did make a circus style catch before it hit the ground. It was initially ruled a catch but a review of the play showed that the ball hit the outfield wall prior to Nimmo gaining control of it. Cowser, to his credit, ran hard the entire time and ended up on third base with a triple and came in to score on a James McCann sacrifice fly.

The hitting continued in his next at-bat as Cowser scorched a double to right field before scoring his second run of the game on a Ramon Urias single. Colton added another single to lead off the eighth inning of game three and scored on Adley Rutschman's sacrifice fly to tie the game, but that's as close as the O's would come to another win.

Colton Cowser helps Orioles salvage split against Astros during weekend series

After getting shutout in the first game against the Astros, the Orioles roared back with a seven run outburst in game two. Cowser again was right in the middle of it all. After homering in the third inning, his 19th of the season which leads all rookies, Cowser led off the eighth inning with his second hit of the day.

He advanced to third on a Rutschman single and when Gunnar Henderson then hit a grounder right back to the pitcher, Cowser was able to scamper back to third base and beat the tag, allowing Henderson to reach on a fielder's choice. With the bases loaded, Santander blasted the go ahead grand slam that put the Birds on top.

Game three required even more late heroics from an Orioles team that was giving fans 2023 flashbacks. The O's were trailing 2-0 with runners on first and second and two outs in the 6th inning when Cowser came to the plate. He hit a routine grounder to first base but made a mad dash and beat Astros first baseman Jon Singleton to the bag with a head first dive.

With the bases loaded the Astros went to the bullpen and brought in Tayler Scott. The Orioles countered by pinch hitting Jackson Holliday for the newly acquired Emmanuel Rivera. Holliday drove the first pitch he saw to the gap in right center for a bases clearing double. Cowser scored what ended up being the game winning run all the way from first base.

For the week, Cowser went 7-25 with one double, one triple, one home run and six runs scored. He may not have been the player with the biggest hits of the week, but those hits couldn't have happened without the services of the Milkman, and that is why he is the player of the week.