3 Up, 3 Down – June 28, 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 the Astros and Blue Jays.

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3 Up

Ryan Mountcastle – .250/.379/.375 (.754), 2 R, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 5 BB, 5 K, 24 AB

Coming off his power surge last week Mountcastle all of a sudden learned to walk this past week. He walked in four straight games (two in one game!) for the first time in his short career and carries that streak into Monday against the Houston Astros. He hit a homerun on Sunday to continue his dominance against the Blue Jays but that was all the power that carried over from the week before. He only batted .250 for the week but the Orioles offense was so dreadful that it was second on the team behind only Austin Hays who batted .261 with a .624 OPS. His .754 OPS was .130 points higher than the next highest Oriole batter (Hays). It was an encouraging week for a free swinger that nearly doubled his walk total from the first 67 games over the last four games. He isn’t going to change who he is as a hitter and suddenly be even average when it comes to drawing walks but nothing else it just shows that he is seeing the ball really well right now and picking up the spin early in a pitcher’s release. If he could get back to the 7.9% walk rate he had in his first month of major league ball in 2020 that would be a big win because we know he can hit and we know he has power, he just needs to be patience enough to get better pitches to hit in the zone.

Matt Harvey – 0-0, 4.76 ERA, 5.2 IP, 6 H, 2 HR, 1 BB, 2 K, 1.24 WHIP

Its pretty sad that a mediocre, not even quality, start ends up on this list but Harvey has been struggling so bad I had to give it to him. Orioles fans might be sick of seeing him toe the rubber every five games but its not his fault. If anything credit to him for continuing to try and grind his way through it. After his May 1^st start against the Oakland A’s when he gave up two runs over 5.2 innings he allowed four runs over four innings to the Red Sox but they were all unearned. In his eight starts between then and his most recent one against Toronto he had a 13.17 ERA over 27.1 innings and never once made it into the 5^th inning. In that span he raised his ERA from 3.60 to 7.80 and his WHIP from 1.29 to 1.78. It is very hard to do that and maintain your rotation spot at the major league or any level. With Dean Kremer having a catastrophic outing (giving up five walks and a grand slam and only recording one out) and in turn being optioned back to AAA Norfolk, Keegan Akin continuing to struggle after the first time through the order, and TBA currently scheduled to start on Tuesday it looks like Harvey’s stranglehold as the second starter will continue into the foreseeable future.

Dillon Tate – 0-0, 3.18 ERA, 5.2 IP, 5 H, 2 BB, 10 K, 1.24 WHIP

Besides the fact that there really weren’t many (if any) other choices to fit into this third slot, Tate earned it based on his outing on Sunday alone. He appeared in four games last week but Sunday afternoon may have been the best he has ever pitched at the major league level. He was throwing heat and struck out five of the six batters he faced over two perfect innings. According to Baseball Savant he averaged 97.1 mph with his sinker which is 2.3 mph higher than his average for the season and they say he touched 99.6 mph with one pitch. The velocity on his slider and changeup were also up 2.5 mph and 2.8 mph respectively so whatever he did in preparation for that game should be repeated at all costs. If he could sustain that type of velocity he goes from being an interesting middle relief arm to a right handed Tanner Scott with better control. I will be paying closer attention than usual to Tate’s next appearance to see what his velocity looks like. The rest of his week was ok other than giving up two runs in relief of Matt Harvey over 1.1 innings in a game the Orioles would ultimately go on to win.

3 Down

Trey Mancini – .080/.080/.120 (.200), 1 R, 1 double, 11 K, 25 AB

Even though Mancini was hitting into a lot of tough luck at the start of the season and landed himself on this list, this is the worst he has been at the plate all year. He just cannot square anything up at the moment. More concerning than a low batting average over a week’s worth of at bats is him not walking at all and striking out 11 times over 25 at bats. He was given a well earned day off on Sunday to try and clear his head but was tasked to pinch hit against a left handed pitcher late in the game and promptly grounded out weakly. You can see the frustration creeping back in with bat and helmet slams as he walks back to the dugout. Its pretty crazy with the way that the season started but Ryan Mountcastle has now eclipsed Mancini in batting average (.263 to .256). There is no long term worry with Mancini. He is a veteran going through a slump. It is the benefit of having players with experience in your lineup. A slump is just a slump whereas with a rookie or player who hasn’t established themselves you worry about what each one means for their skill level in the long run. I would expect Trey to show back up (so to speak) on the nice list before too long.

Freddy Galvis – .158/.200/.158 (.358), 1 R, 1 BB, 5 K, 19 AB

Yes, Galvis didn’t perform well with the bat last week which helps land him on this list but the thing that pushes him to the top of the flooded sewer that was the Orioles roster’s performance is the fact that he injured his quad and will miss 1-2 months on the injured list. That hurts on many levels. First, literally – that has to be painful for Galvis to experience. Second, it removes the fourth highest OPS on the team from the lineup for a big part of the season. Third, any trade value that Galvis had accrued is essentially gone as he will be on the IL past the trade deadline on July 30^th. And lastly, the Orioles have had a black hole at second base and third base all season and we can most likely add shortstop to that list now. Ramon Urias and newly acquired from waivers Domingo Leyba were added to the roster prior to Sunday’s game. Meanwhile Orioles fans were clamoring for Jahmai Jones to finally get his shot after returning from his injury and performing very well at AAA Norfolk. He isn’t a shortstop but seems like the best option to play second base every day while you could slide one of Pat Valaika, Urias, or Leyba over to shortstop. With such meager meat on the bone at the major league level for Orioles fans it doesn’t look like they’re going to let go of this one until they get it.

Mickey Jannis – 0-0, 18.90 ERA, 3.1 IP, 8 H, 3 HR, 4 BB, 1 K, 3.60 WHIP

Everybody seemed excited to see the 33 year old knuckleballer make his major league debut after pitching to a 2.92 ERA over 24.2 innings for AAA Norfolk. It couldn’t hurt right? Wrong. It turns out it could hurt quite a bit. It doesn’t help that Jannis was throwing a pitch famously hard to catch to catcher Pedro Severino who looks like hes trying to catch the ball with a second baseman’s mitt behind the plate as it is but even with that caveat he got lit up and struggled to find the plate. The only good thing was that he was able to eat 3.1 innings in the midst of a blowout loss. What did he get for his troubles? DFA’d. Lucky for him he passed through waivers and can start the process of trying to get to the majors all over again in Norfolk. Jannis wasn’t the only minor league lifer who got to make their major league debut with the Orioles this week. Konner Wade was added to the roster over the weekend due to a depleted pitching staff and he didn’t fare any better, giving up six runs on seven hits and a walk over 1.2 innings with one strikeout. He was also sent back to AAA Norfolk following his appearance but in his case he was kept on the 40 man roster so it would be conceivably easier for him to get called back up at some point. The Orioles have plenty of these types of players in Norfolk’s bullpen (Manny Barreda, Marcos Diplan, Eric Hanhold, etc.) that they can churn through if they feel the need.