3 Up, 3 Down – June 6, 2022

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 will highlight the performances of the series’ against the Mariners and Guardians.

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3 Up

Trey Mancini – .273/.360/.682 (1.042), 7 R, 3 doubles, 2 HR, 5 RBI, 22 AB

It wasn’t that long ago that we were talking about how unlucky Trey’s start to the season was, watching him spray line drives all over the field that were either right at somebody, a fielder made a great play on the ball, or in some cases he hit the ball off of the new wall that would’ve been a homerun in years past. Then we saw him have some fluky hits fall in that seemed to help balance the scales of justice and now he is back to killing the ball except the results are as expected or better. Since the calendar turned over to May, Mancini has batted .355 with a .951 OPS, 10 extra base hits including four of his five homeruns on the season, a 10.1% walk rate, a fantastic 13.7% strikeout rate, and a 178 wRC+. I thought the 2019 season would be the peak of his career when he put up a .899 OPS and 132 wRC+ with 35 homeruns over 679 plate appearances especially after everything he went through in 2020 and bouncing back to a respectable .758 OPS and 105 wRC+ in 2021. As primarily a DH who can play first base and try to play corner outfield that is a type of player that tends to start to decline a little earlier than others but if Trey keeps up this pace he will be even better. He currently sits at a 137 wRC+ and is swinging and missing much less than he did last season. His barrel percentage and hard hit percentage are both up while his strikeout rate is down. Nobody wants to talk about it but being in the midst of a season like this will only increase Mancini’s trade value over the next month or two. It would be a loss for the clubhouse and the offense but would also open up a space for someone like Kyle Stowers to come up and Tyler Nevin to get some more playing time with an eye towards 2023.

Ryan Mountcastle – .158/.333/.526 (.859), 3 R, 1 double, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 5 BB, 2 K, 19 AB

It was a weird week for Mountcastle who typically needs to have a high batting average to end up on the ‘3 Up’ section. 10 days ago (May 27) he ended the night with his walk rate for the season at 3.5%. He has walked six times since then and has gotten his walk rate up to 5.9% in just nine games. He also has only struck out twice over his past eight games, lowering his strikeout rate almost four percentage points taking it from 27.6% down to 23.8%. He is also hitting for more power lately already matching April’s one double and two homeruns in just 20 plate appearances. He is still blood red in all of the expected stats categories on Baseball Savant and continues to have the best barrel percentage and hard hit rate of his young career. He still swings at everything but has enough bat control to do damage when he makes contact. He is close to average defensively at first base and if anything that should continue to improve rather than get worse since he is still relatively new at the position. His wRC+ is still above average at 107 despite having just a .727 OPS, it is a very different run environment in baseball this year. Mountcastle may never fully put it together to be a top of the lineup hitter on a playoff team but he should be a steady presence for quite a while at what is probably the only position that lacks depth in the minor leagues (and the least difficult position to fill).

Jorge Lopez – 0-1, 0.00 ERA, 1 SV, 3.2 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 3 K, 0.27 WHIP

The Orioles tried very hard to make it work with Lopez in the starting rotation since claiming him on waivers from the Kansas City Royals in August 2020. He put up a 6.34 ERA over 38.1 innings starting six games to close out that season then went on to start 25 games in 2021 ultimately ending up with a 6.07 ERA over 121.2 innings even after finally being moved to the bullpen. He looked good pitching in relief but unfortunately had to be shut down early with an injury. He came into this season and was suddenly throwing his sinker in the upper 90’s and quickly took a firm hold on the closer’s role. With seven saves, a 1.00 ERA, and a 0.96 WHIP over 27 innings with 25 strikeouts he is looking like he might be the favorite to be the Orioles all-star representative if they only end up with one. The bad news is his expected ERA is a lot higher than his actual ERA. The good news is his expected ERA is still a very good 2.99 and his FIP is 2.95. There isn’t much of a fluke here, the Orioles either found a high leverage reliever in the blink of an eye from a guy they already had on staff or they have a very attractive trade chip around the deadline. Or both. He has traded in using his four seam fastball 21.1% of the time for predominately using his sinker that averages 97.7 mph. He is throwing his changeup and slider a little bit more often and is getting more swings and misses with them as well. He is getting weak contact, the only thing he could really improve is his walk rate which is in the bottom 17% of the league at 11.9%. That is the highest mark of his career (his career rate is 9%) so there is reason to believe that will come down a little.

3 Down

Adley Rutschman – .000/.059/.000 (.059), 1 R, 0 BB, 8 K, 16 AB

Two rough weeks in a row isn’t exactly what you want to see when you bring up the best prospect in baseball but like I mentioned last week we’ve seen this from a lot of highly touted prospects of late in their first taste of the majors. Bobby Witt Jr and Julio Rodriguez were pretty bad before they got going more recently. Spencer Torkelson still has an OPS right around .600. CJ Abrams, Jarred Kelenic, Josh Lowe, and O’Neill Cruz are all currently in the minor leagues after having received major league at bats. Last week you could say Adley was having great at bats, drawing some walks, and getting unlucky between umpires and balls not falling in. Not so much this week as he didn’t walk at all and struck out in half of his at bats. He is still getting unlucky on balls in play with a .194 BABIP and his average exit velocity is 91 mph which is only behind Ryan Mountcastle (91.3) and Ramon Urias (91.2) on the team. The problem is he has yet to barrel up a ball so while he is hitting the ball hard frequently he isn’t combining that with the ideal launch angle. I still believe it is only a matter of time before the hits start falling in and he can relax at the plate and get back to being himself in the batters box. It doesn’t appear that he is trying too hard amidst this slump but it still can’t be easy given all the hype. No matter how he performs at the plate he will bring value behind it. I look forward to talking about his breakout in the ‘3 Up’ section soon.

Zac Lowther –0-0, 8.44 ERA, 5.1 IP, 8 H, 1 HBP, 2 BB, 1 K, 1.88 WHIP

Lowther didn’t do anything to earn a promotion after starting the season in AAA Norfolk and struggling to a 8.26 ERA over 28.1 innings with a 1.94 WHIP and .341 batting average against but he was on the 40 man roster and available to give them multiple innings. He didn’t get the spot start for the open slot on the schedule but he did follow Bryan Baker and give the team 5.1 innings and 100 pitches. It started off really ugly when he came in for Baker with runners on first and second with one out in the second inning. He would go on to allow those two runners to score as well as one of his own in that inning and four more in the third. He settled down to toss three consecutive scoreless innings but then gave up another run in the 7 before being removed from the game. Overall he gave up 11 hard hit balls and only struck out one batter so its hard to give him credit for anything other than chewing on some innings. He would get ahead of hitters fairly consistently but then leave balls over the middle of the plate that major league hitters just aren’t going to miss, especially with the middling stuff he has. His fastball averages 90 mph.  In order for Lowther to be successful he needs to have his command and deception working in tandem and it just hasn’t been since the missing 2020 season. This is a guy who had a 2.55 ERA in AA Bowie over 148 innings in 2019 and has been a top 30 prospect in the system. Its hard to believe he could be designated for assignment but unless he can find a way to recapture some of that magic I think that may be where things are heading.

Jordan Lyles – 0-0, 7.20 ERA, 5 IP, 9 H, 2 BB, 3 K, 2.20 WHIP

I got some pushback for calling Lyles an innings eater early in the season but that’s exactly what he has been. He leads the team in innings pitched with 62 over his first 11 starts. That averages out to 5.6 innings per start. In this day and age that is very good. He has a 4.50 ERA and has hardly been consistent in results other than innings but he has been something this starting rotation has needed. Good offenses are going to get to him but he can still come out and pitch well for five, six, seven innings on occasion. His FIP and xFIP are nearly identical at 3.98 and 3.99 respectively and he has an above league average walk rate to go along with the third best strikeout rate of his career. He had a great month of May with a 3.65 ERA and 1.32 WHIP over 37 innings with 36 strikeouts and only 10 walks. June got off to a rough start with this start against the Mariners but he is set up for a bounce back outing next time out at home against the Chicago Cubs. It will be interesting to see how the next couple months go for Lyles and whether he can build up enough value to either be a trade asset at the deadline or a guy the team decides they want to keep around and exercise his option for the 2023 season.