Orioles: 3 Up, 3 Down August 25th

Every week that we have baseball this season, and enjoy every single one because it could disappear at any given moment, I will be taking note of the three hottest Orioles and the three coldest.

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

3 Up

Anthony Santander – .333/.394/.767 (1.161), 4 R, 4 doubles, 3 HR, 5 RBI, 3 BB, 30 AB

Santander went from having a blazing hot stretch last week to entering the MVP conversation this week. Two great weeks is pretty much 25% of the season and he is almost single handedly keeping the Orioles relevant in the playoff picture. Nothing put that on display quite like game tying two run bomb that he pulled deep into the left field stands on Saturday night against Boston en route to an extra inning victory to snap a six game losing streak. You can tell he is starting to garner the respect of pitchers around the league as he gets pitched around and intentionally walked in big spots. He will take his league leading 18 game hitting streak into Tampa Bay to kick off a series against the Rays on Tuesday night.

Ryan Mountcastle – .333/.500/.556 (1.056), 2 R, 2 doubles, 3 BB, 9 AB

The most exciting day of last week was indubitably Friday when news started to leak out that Mountcastle would finally be making his major league debut with the Orioles over the weekend. A top 5 prospect in the O’s minor league system who has hit at every level of the minor leagues at a young age and won the International League MVP last season in AAA realistically could’ve been up mid-way through 2019 based on his hitting ability alone. He was kept down to work on his defense in left field and try to improve his plate discipline. (Gaining an extra year of service time I’m sure didn’t hurt either.) So of course he walked two times in his first game, giving him more than Jose Iglesias on the year already. He didn’t look lost in the outfield based on the few opportunities I saw him make but he was also lifted for a defensive replacement late in Sunday’s game. His first major league hit was a swinging bunt single on Saturday but he did rip two doubles on Sunday. Mountcastle’s performance over the last month of the season is reason enough to watch the Orioles even if they weren’t fighting for one of the last few playoff spots.

Tom Eshelman – 1-0, 1.23 ERA, 7.1 IP, 2 BB, 3 K, 0.55 WHIP

Eshelman didn’t impress much in his first year with the Orioles in 2019 after being acquired from the Phillies for Dan Straily. Not that it took much more than being better than a batting practice pitcher to do better than Straily’s disastrous season last year. Eshelman doesn’t have the stuff that would entice scouts, he barely strikes anyone out, but when he is at his best he is able to locate a decent mix of pitches. Since being recalled this season he still isn’t striking anyone out but he has done a great job of saving the bullpen with some successful multi-inning outings. None more so than on Sunday when he replaced an injured Wade LeBlanc with two outs in the very first inning and went on to pitch 4.1 scoreless, hitless innings. With LeBlanc most likely done for the season, or at the very least going on the injured list, perhaps Eshelman gets the first crack at replacing him in the rotation. I would prefer to see a prospect a la Keegan Akin or Dean Kremer get that shot but you couldn’t argue it based on merit alone.

3 Down

Renato Nunez – .226/.219/.258 (.477), 1 R, 1 double, 2 RBI, 31 AB

When I put Nunez on the ‘3 Up’ list a couple weeks ago I wrote about how 2019 was a story peaks and valleys for the 26 year old should be full time DH. He is either on fire or ice cold. He started the season out on fire and has now cooled off considerably. I also noted on August 10^th that he had seemed to improve his plate discipline a bit with an improved walk rate but it looks like that might also be tied into his streakiness. This past week he didn’t walk a single time over 31 at bats compared to 11 strikeouts. To be fair he has managed to keep a fairly respectable batting average during this cold spell and even though his hits have been mostly singles, it still seems like when he hits the ball he hits it hard. He is just not getting the ball in the air enough to let his power show itself. He needs to get back into the rhythm of not swinging at pitcher’s pitches and making them leave mistakes over the middle of the plate for him to crush.

Rio Ruiz – .174/.240/.261 (.501), 2 R, 2 doubles, 4 RBI, 2 BB, 23 AB

Ruiz potentially had a breakout, slump busting day at the plate on Sunday with a single and a double with four RBI but time will tell if he is able to build off of that. Prior to that he looked as lost as anyone has at the plate for the Orioles this season. His early power surge might’ve gotten to his head a bit since it looked like he was swinging out of his shoes at every opportunity to try and pull the ball in the general vicinity of the warehouse. The good news for him is that his defense is solid enough for Brandon Hyde to keep running him out there at third base on most days regardless of how he is hitting. He has a unsustainably low BABIP of .216 (was under .200 before Sunday) which indicates that at least a small part of his slump is luck induced. We can only hope he can get back to the success he was having to start the season so we can continue to get a look at his amazing hair all year long.

Dwight Smith Jr. – .167/.231/.167 (.397), 1 R, 1 BB, 12 AB

This entry kind of goes hand in hand with Ryan Mountcastle’s as Smith was the roster casualty to make room for the young prospect. He was DFA’d after a rough start to 2020. Not only had he not been hitting of late as shown in the stat line above but he is a butcher in the outfield and made a terrible baserunning error that could’ve prevented the Orioles from winning a game earlier in the week. Hopefully he is able to catch on with another team as he seems like a good dude in the clubhouse. He was the O’s representative in the MLB the Show stuff while the season was shut down and got a late start in summer camp due to a positive COVID test. If he makes it through waivers and onto the alternate roster there is a chance he could make his way back to Baltimore but I would think injuries to the guys in front of him would have to be involved and nobody wants that.