With three weeks left in the regular season, Colton Cowser has separated himself in the American League Rookie of the Year Award race.

The Orioles outfielder enters play Sunday with 10/27 (-270) odds on FanDuel SportsBook, making him the clear betting favorite over New York Yankees catcher Austin Wells (+185), Boston Red Sox outfielder Wilyer Abreu (+2500) and Yankees starter Luis Gil (+7000). His second-half surge at the plate has helped Cowser take the AL rookie lead in home runs (20), runs scored (69) and FanGraphs’ wins above replacement (3.5) while ranking second in doubles (21) and RBIs (62).

Cowser’s case is aided by just how much he’s played this season — only Boston’s Ceddanne Rafaela has appeared in more games among AL rookies — but where he’s truly separated himself is his defense. Despite playing half his games at Camden Yards, where the extended left field wall requires him to cover much more ground than the average outfielder, he leads all primary left fielders — rookies or otherwise — in Statcast’s fielding metric Outs Above Average (OAA) with 11.

“He’s put the work in,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “He’s come a long way in a year and you saw the talent, the speed, the throwing arm. I think the accuracy has improved over the course of the year also. Be it just him being more aggressive. Honestly, he was pretty passive last year, especially in center field, and now he’s way more comfortable.”

OAA is a range-based statistic that aims to measure how many outs a player has saved throughout a season factoring in the number of plays they made, or didn’t make, and how difficult they were. Cowser, who has also played center field this season, not only leads all left fielders, but his total is more than double the next closest player at the position: the Houston Astros’ Chas McCormick, who has tallied five.

It’s a testament to how well Cowser has handled the wall at Camden Yards, which was extended ahead of the 2022 season to stretch as deep as 394 feet from home plate and raised five feet to eliminate any hope of fielders pulling balls back from over the wall. His range is tested more than most players at his position, and he’s responded to the challenge by improving his route running and getting used to making reads with the third deck of the ballpark behind the ball.

“Any time when there’s a ball hit over your head it feels like you can … put on a full sprint,” Cowser said of playing left field in Baltimore. “I think that it’s one of those outfields where you can put your head down and get plenty of space to keep going and you kind of know whenever a ball is going to get out in left. Usually, it’s hit a little different, which you can really tell. But I just think overall, just being aggressive out there.”

The Orioles showed just how much they trust Cowser in left when they traded Austin Hays at the July 30 deadline. Hays, a Gold Glove Award finalist last season, was part of the Orioles’ calculus in their decision to move the wall back in the first place. In moving on from him, the Orioles placed their faith in Cowser, their No. 5 overall draft pick in 2021, to man the position for the rest of this year and beyond.

“I think he’s a legit center fielder that can go play in the corners,” said first base coach Anthony Sanders, who coaches outfield defense. “But he’s adjusting. I know he’s played a lot of center in the minor leagues but that left field is like no other. You just have to drop your head and keep going and going but he does a really good job. Obviously, losing Austin Hays, who I thought was excellent out there, he’s picked up the pace.”

Cowser’s aggressiveness has been evident in his throws. He’s only racked up two outfield assists this season, but has showed off 96th-percentile arm strength according to Statcast. With only one error all year, he’s put himself in the running for a Gold Glove in addition to Rookie of the Year. Cowser would be the first player to win both in the same season since Ichiro Suzuki’s historic debut season for the Seattle Mariners in 2001.

Competition will be stiff for a Gold Glove, however. While Cowser leads all AL left fielders in OAA, other advanced metrics such as Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) both favor the Cleveland Guardians’ Steven Kwan — who beat out Hays for the award last year — Detroit Tigers All-Star Riley Greene and Yankees veteran Alex Verdugo. He would be spared from competing against the Toronto Blue Jays’ Daulton Varsho, who qualifies for center field despite playing a significant chunk of his season in left.

“It’s not something I’m crazy worried about or anything like that,” Cowser said of winning a Gold Glove. “It’s not like that’s something that I was making a goal for myself or anything like that but if that’s how the cards fall then, yeah, it’d be really cool.”

Even if he only wins Rookie of the Year, he would follow Gunnar Henderson to give the Orioles the first set of back-to-back winners since the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger in 2016 and 2017. Doing so would be a massive organizational victory for the Orioles, who would net an extra pick in next year’s MLB draft.

He has already won over the fan base with loud “Moos” following him around the country and cow costumes filling the seats at Camden Yards. Perhaps the voters will be next.