3 Up, 3 Down – June 21, 2021

Welcome to ‘3 Up, 3 Down’, the weekly column breaking down the three hottest and three coldest Orioles players based on their performance during the previous week. It has proven to be an interesting exercise and good opportunity to highlight the highs and lows of a long baseball season. This week comes after series against Cleveland and the Blue Jays.

(You can discuss this on the BSL board here.)

3 Up

Ryan Mountcastle – .480/.480/.960 (1.440), 5 R, 4 HR, 8 RBI, 25 AB

Saturday’s devastating loss can’t be blamed on the offense, especially Mountcastle and his four hit (all over 100 mph), three homerun game. He cooled off last week after his player of the week honors the week before, landing himself on the three down list, but he is likely a candidate for player of the week again after the week he just had. After an ice cold first month of the season (.515 OPS in April) he started to hit better in May (.256 batting average, .748 OPS) and has really taken off in June with a .375 batting average and 1.144 OPS over 66 plate appearances. He has been especially effective against left handed pitching on the season as a whole with a .319 batting average and .897 OPS against them over 79 plate appearances. He is batting .243 with a .706 OPS against right handed pitching over 175 plate appearances. Another weird split for him is that he has a .331 batting average and .974 OPS at home in Camden Yards and a .189 batting average on the road with a .522 OPS. He still isn’t walking, if anything he is walking less as he has heated up. He currently sits in the bottom two percent of the league in walk percentage. He chases everything, he strikes out a ton, and he has a hard time reading offspeed pitches but luckily his bat control is so good that he can square up pitches from anywhere (except a low and away breaking ball apparently) like a poor man’s Vladimir Guerrero Sr. The defense is still terrible (bottom two percent in outs above average) but even if he is a DH long term he is a bat that you can feel comfortable with placing in the middle of your lineup on a contending team.

Cedric Mullins – .296/.406/.778 (1.184), 6 R, 1 double, 4 HR, 6 RBI, 2 SB, 27 AB

Mullins is a regular here at this establishment. His continued success never ceases to amaze. He had back to back multi-homerun games over the weekend against the Blue Jays and is showing the kind of power this season to warrant his nickname in the minor leagues ‘Parking Lot’. With Mike Trout injured he has established himself as the best centerfielder in baseball and he should be the starter at the position in the all-star game. With 3.5 fWAR he is only behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Shohei Ohtani, and Ronald Acuna when it comes to position players and Ohtani has earned some with his pitching. He is on pace to have one of the best seasons of all time in Orioles history. A .941 OPS, 13 homeruns, 12 steals, and gold glove defense at the most important position in the outfield and we’re not even halfway through the season yet. He was hit by three pitches this week which is probably a result of the crackdown on sticky substances for pitchers more than any kind of hostility towards Mullins but it helps his on base percentage all the same. Coming into the season the outfield looked like the deepest position on the team (and its still deep if not super productive) but I don’t think anyone expected Mullins to be the cornerstone in center with a rotating cast of characters on either side of him.

Dean Kremer – 0-1, 3.97 ERA, 11.1 IP, 7 H, 3 BB, 8 K, 0.88 WHIP

Kremer returned to the starting rotation this week after a couple of starts for AAA Norfolk to try and get right. The John Means injury might’ve resulted in him getting the call sooner than they planned on but he did a decent job down there with a 4.15 ERA over 8.2 innings with 14 strikeouts and five walks. He came up on Monday to make the start in Cleveland and immediately got in trouble before settling down and pitching 5.1 innings. He ended up giving up four runs (three earned) with two strikeouts and no walks. It was a similar story on Saturday. He gave up two homeruns in the first inning but only one more hit (and three walks) over the rest of his outing which lasted six innings. Those were the only two runs he would allow and he struck out six batters. The bullpen imploded which washed away a big Orioles lead and what looked like a win for Kremer but it is encouraging progress for a guy expected to be capable of holding down a rotation spot long term. Since returning he is throwing his four seamer a little less and his cutter a little more but its mostly just been a better command of the strike zone that has led to a little more success. Hopefully he is able to continue to work on things at the major league level and can stick in the rotation because the O’s need every pitcher that can eat innings they can get their hands on.

3 Down

Anthony Santander – .167/.200/.208 (.408), 1 R, 1 double, 24 AB

Things looked good when Santander returned from his ankle injury that he suffered getting back to first base on a pick off attempt against the Marlins in Miami. He was hitting double after double and had a great week or two right away. But between him getting some days off, some days at DH with Ryan Mountcastle in the outfield in his stead, and looking hobbled running the bases (and particularly a play in the outfield that eventually led to a loss that he just missed that he would typically get to if he was fully healthy) its obvious it is effecting his ability to be productive. I appreciate the effort and want to play through it but its clear he needs to give it more time to let it heal and should be placed back on the IL. Even if it’s a situation where hes most likely not going to injure it more it would be better for the teams chances to win if Ryan McKenna (who is hitting the ball really well since being optioned to AAA Norfolk) or Yusniel Diaz (finally healthy again himself) were running out there everyday. Particularly because Santander literally can’t run… He was a gold glove finalist last season but he can’t be that guy playing like this. In spring training it was a big storyline that he was working on his plate discipline and it looked like it was working as he had 10 walks in 13 games covering 29 at bats. Well so far this year he only has six walks in 44 games covering 163 at bats which equals a 3.4 walk percentage. That is in the bottom two percent of the league and is lower than any season of his career including his rookie season as an overwhelmed rule 5 pick.

Paul Fry – 0-1, 13.50 ERA, 2.2 IP, 3 H, 3 BB, 3 K, 2.25 WHIP

Maybe there is a curse for any pitcher that is put into the closer role on this team. Or maybe Fry’s recent short sample size struggles are just a blip on the radar. He was absolutely lights out over the first two months of the season with 31 strikeouts and just eight walks over 20 innings. So far in June he has a 6.00 ERA over six innings with six walks and six strikeouts. He still has yet to give up a homerun on the season and is productive against hitters from both sides of the plate. He has a 0.93 ERA against left handed hitters but strikes out more right handed hitters and has a lower WHIP against them despite a 4.41 ERA. The sudden control issues do come at a curious time with the recent crack down on sticky stuff but correlation doesn’t equal causation and I certainly don’t have enough information to dig into that more other than just noting the timing. Its Paul Fry, he came out of nowhere to become a consistently productive member of the Orioles bullpen and has really come into his own this season despite being awful in spring training (like we needed more examples of why spring training stats are meaningless that we will immediately forget come next March). The terrible inning on Saturday, and struggles with the bullpen overall that day, came from pitchers that were pitching in back to back games (Tanner Scott, Hunter Harvey, and Fry). Like Brandon Hyde said, high leverage major league relievers need to be able to work in back to back games but it is something to keep in mind when considering the week he had.

Matt Harvey – 0-2, 10.57 ERA, 7.2 IP, 15 H, 4 BB, 6 K, 2.48 WHIP

At this point its embarrassing for everyone involved to keep running Harvey out there every five days. Hyde has to keep answering questions about if and when he will be removed from the rotation/team and Harvey has to keep going out there and throwing batting practice in games that count. The real person to blame for fans having to watch him pitch is Mike Elias. I’m on record for being all in on the rebuild he is leading. It was long overdue and he has done tremendous work in his short time as general manager – building up the Orioles international presence to be in line with other teams after years and years of being non-existent, turning a bottom five farm system into one that is ranked in the top five by some and top 10 by most outlets, and continuously using trades to turn short term assets into long term assets – but it has been a struggle at the major league level. He could’ve brought in more options with major league experience to compete in spring training or could’ve spent just a little more money to sign someone whose major league career wasn’t hanging on by a thread like Harvey and Felix Hernandez. Second base has been a black hole all season and the rotation behind the now injured John Means hasn’t inspired confidence to say the least. I’m still very optimistic that it will turn around as soon as next season but these games count too and fans are expected to watch the product on the field. Its been obvious for weeks that Harvey doesn’t belong on a major league team but we’ll see how many more starts he gets with the Orioles before they inevitably move on.