Orioles news: Colin Selby's impressive debut, Ramon Urias stays hot

Reliever Colin Selby was never a great pitcher in the minors, to the point where the Orioles were able to acquire him in July from the Royals for just cash considerations. He'd posted solid results in Double-A back in 2022 but struggled once he reached Triple-A and didn't look good in his first taste of the big leagues last year in Pittsburgh.

The guy we saw on Monday night in New York looked entirely different. Selby was excellent in his debut with the Orioles, striking out three of the four batters he faced while showing off a pair of nasty breaking balls.

Selby was touching 97 mph with the sinker, and his knuckle curve was unhittable. He also has a slider that he was able to throw with pinpoint command on Monday en route to a four-out scoreless outing.

Selby came on to clean up a mess created by Trevor Rogers, who had walked both Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso in the top of the 5th on Monday night. The young right hander ate up Starling Marte, getting the veteran to swing and miss at a nasty sinker to strand Lindor and Alonso and keep the O's within striking distance.

Though they'd eventually lose on Monday, Selby looked like he might have good enough stuff to stick around for the rest of the season. With the Orioles' bullpen in rough shape as of late, they'll take all the help they can get.

Ramon Urias is putting together a surprisingly strong season

If you look at the whole body of work, Ramon Urias' 2024 has been solid, if nothing else. The utility infielder is hitting .243/.313/.386 with a little power and strong plate discipline while filling in for Jordan Westburg and Jorge Mateo.

He's been better since the All Star break, posting a .740 OPS with a drastically improved 43.5% hard hit rate. Over the past month, Urias has been making better contact and the results are coming around. He showed off his power on Monday, launching a David Peterson fastball over 430 feet into left center field, his 7th of the year in 81 games.

Nobody is going to mistake Urias as the O's third baseman of the future but he's been a valuable role player for Brandon Hyde's squad, especially lately. If Urias can keep up this level of play for the season's final six weeks, it'll go a long way toward mitigating the O's poor injury luck and help this team overtake the Yankees in the division.