Taylor Ward is slumping for the Orioles. His walks are how he’s ‘surviving.’

The plate appearance for Taylor Ward in the fifth inning Sunday was a microcosm of what the Orioles outfielder has done well this season. He took three close pitches for balls. He saw two strikes, then battled Athletics right-hander Luis Severino by fouling off the next three pitches.

Then he looked at ball four, and with a light toss of his bat, Ward took first base. In doing so, he became the first Orioles player since the club moved to Baltimore in 1954 to walk 40 times in his first 40 games of a season.

That, of course, is not why the Orioles traded for Ward over the winter. They acquired the outfielder for the thump in his bat, with Ward fresh off a career-high 36 home runs for the Los Angeles Angels. But, if this is a slump for Ward, there are worse ways to grind through it than this.

“With walks, that’s how you survive,” Ward said. “I think that’s what you’re seeing right now, just kind of surviving with those.”

Ward is not hitting the way he wants to. He began the year on fire, with 13 doubles in 25 games. But he hasn’t managed an extra-base hit in 15 games, and in nine games this month, Ward has only two hits.

From a macro level, Ward is far from the only Orioles hitter struggling lately. Baltimore’s 368 strikeouts through its first 40 games were the most in franchise history. The silver lining for Ward, then, is how he’s still managing to reach base.

He’s doing it through impressive strike zone discipline. Entering Sunday, before walking twice more in the series finale against the Athletics, Ward’s 21.2% walk rate was in the top percentile of baseball. He’s chased pitches outside the zone at a 10.7% clip, which was also in the 100th percentile, according to Statcast.

The lack of out-of-zone swinging has been a theme throughout Ward’s career, and it’s part of the reason Baltimore traded for him. After the trade, president of baseball operations Mike Elias said the Orioles had “been chasing” Ward for the last few years, because he fits many of Baltimore’s preferred offensive identities.

He hits the ball hard (averaging a 90.1-mph exit velocity in his career), and he doesn’t swing outside the zone. A 21.2% walk rate might not be sustainable — Ward’s previous career-high walk rate was 12.5% in 2019 — but the 32-year-old is staying within himself during an offensive downturn.

“It’s really exciting to see that added to his skill set,” hitting coach Dustin Lind said, “with the understanding that there’s probably going to be a lot more power on the way as we get down the road.”

There are three reasons Ward thinks his plate discipline is better than ever and his walk numbers are up. First, it comes down to mechanics. He spends the offseason fine-tuning his swing to produce a line-drive approach. Second, Ward’s pregame studying of the pitchers he’ll face gives him an idea of where they will try to nibble outside the zone.

The third has to do with the automatic ball-strike challenge system.

Ward said he thinks umpires are doing “a way better job this year of being more around the zone” because there is a check-and-balance system. More than ever, Ward can trust his eye — and a challenge corrects an obvious miss.

So, if this is Ward’s slump, he is surviving it by still getting on base. For the Orioles to improve on offense, they’ll need him and others to begin driving the ball again. But for now Ward will welcome his free 90 feet.