DETROIT — Even in the midst of a nightmare beginning to the season, Austin Voth knew it wouldn’t last forever. He’d shake it off, wake up and find that the head-scratching results of early April were well behind him.

The Orioles reliever was ambushed in many ways during his first five appearances, allowing a home run in each of them. He could point to his curveball command, a pitch he has leaned on throughout his career but couldn’t quite locate with the correct shape early on.

“When I’m at my best, I can command my curveball, that strike-to-ball shape,” Voth said earlier this month. “That’s when I get my swings and misses, that weak contact, but it’s kind of been an inconsistent pitch right now. But I feel like eventually it will come around.”

Voth was right. Since ending his fifth outing with his fifth home run against him, Voth has allowed one run in his last 6 2/3 innings out of the bullpen. And Voth’s two-inning stint Sunday was crucial in Baltimore’s 5-3 victory, covering for a shortened outing from right-hander Kyle Bradish in the long-relief role that made Voth so valuable on this roster.

“Austin Voth did a great job, going two-plus innings,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “That’s what we did last year, too. Bullpen keeping the score tight, keeping the score there, holding onto a lead, and really happy with how they’ve thrown the ball.”

The Orioles acquired Voth last year off waivers from the Washington Nationals. He turned his season around in Baltimore, with a 3.04 ERA in 83 innings compared to the 10.13 ERA he posted in 18 2/3 frames with the Nationals.

That earned him a one-year, $1.85 million contract this season. And while Voth didn’t make the rotation out of spring training, he earned a place in the bullpen behind the belief he could cover innings as a reliever. Baltimore stuck to that belief, even when the five homers haunted the start of Voth’s season.

“This isn’t going to last forever,” Voth reiterated earlier this month. “It’s not going to keep on continuing.”

And it didn’t. His curveball, Hyde noted this week, is back near its best. Voth threw it 10 times among his 36 pitches Sunday and a batter managed to put it in play just once.

The bullpen helped the Orioles close out their sixth series victory in a row and advance to 19-9 this season, weathering a three-run fifth inning against Bradish. It’s the first time the team has won six consecutive series since 2014. Baltimore currently boasts the third-most wins in Major League Baseball, behind the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay Rays.

“Playing good baseball,” second baseman Adam Frazier said. “Pitch well, play good defense and timely hits. … Any time you’re winning games, everything’s good.”

Bradish had retired 12 of the first 15 batters he faced prior to the fifth inning. Then he threw seven four-seam fastballs or sinkers to the first two batters he faced in the fifth, and it led to a single and a two-run homer from catcher Jake Rogers.

Bradish’s fastball and sinker recorded one whiff on 14 swings. His curveball and slider induced six whiffs on 15 swings. Bradish has to establish his harder pitches before batters will consistently offer at breaking balls, but he couldn’t in the fifth and left after three runs crossed.

“We were hammering the slider early, so we were trying to get on them with fastballs, because they were kind of sitting soft,” Bradish said. “Then I just wasn’t landing them, so when I did throw them that slider or ran that two-seam in there against Rogers, they were just on it.”

The Orioles gave Bradish run support in short spurts, adding on a tally in the second, third, fourth and fifth. Ryan Mountcastle recorded his first RBI since April 16 with a double that snuck past the lunging glove of third baseman Andy Ibáñez, finally leaving Mountcastle on the receiving end of some good fortune.

A line drive homer from Frazier — his third this year, matching the number of long balls he hit with the Seattle Mariners in 2022 in 128 fewer games — in the fourth was joined by a solo shot from Jorge Mateo in the ninth to provide insurance for a bullpen that maneuvered the close middle innings with little room for error.

First it was left-hander Cionel Pérez who stranded two runners on base he inherited from Bradish with a check-swing strikeout of Nick Maton. Voth worked two innings, left-hander Danny Coulombe pitched a high-leverage spot, and then right-hander Yennier Canó continued his sublime form, recording a four-out save as batters are hitting 0-for-32 against him with just one reaching via a hit by pitch this season.

“Can’t even describe it,” Hyde said. “Has anybody ever seen that? Nope. So it’s indescribable.”

Canó bursting onto the scene has been a surprise, given the struggles he had last year in limited time for Baltimore. But Voth’s resurgence isn’t a shock to Hyde.

Before Voth found the command of his curveball once more, perhaps he wouldn’t have been the obvious choice in a one-run game. But as he predicted, the home run barrage against him finally ended, and in the time since, he looks more like his old, trustworthy self.

“Throwing the curveball more, kind of back to the pitcher he was as a starter,” Hyde said. “And it was literally like one or two pitches an appearance early that would end up, unfortunately, being a homer. But the last few appearances he’s shown the kind of pitcher he can be and how valuable he can be for us.”

andy.kostka@thebaltimorebanner.com