The Orioles got rid of their jet lag from the West Coast trip. They really are healthier.<\/p>\n
They can\u2019t brag, though. Jordan Westburg and Cedric Mullins returned yesterday, and the club announced at first pitch that Jorge Mateo was going on the injured list with left elbow inflammation.<\/p>\n
Never a dull moment to the 2025 season. Never a peaceful stretch.<\/p>\n
Mateo was injured while playing center field on May 31 at Camden Yards. He raced into the gap and his arm slammed into Heston Kjerstad\u2019s arm. Kjerstad made the catch, but it wasn\u2019t their only adventure while chasing a ball in that vicinity.<\/p>\n
Both players have seen better days. Mateo is on the IL while batting .180\/.231\/.279 in 31 games. Kjerstad was optioned yesterday while batting .192\/.240\/.327 in 54.<\/p>\n
Kjerstad finally got his shot but struggled at the plate and in the outfield, and the Orioles basically had to choose between Dylan Carlson and the player selected with the second-overall pick in the 2020 draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeston\u2019s kind of sometimes unorthodox with his game play, but a really good player nonetheless,\u201d Mullins said. \u201cSome things that he needs to work on. I think he was able to see that and feel that during his time here. A lot of guys go through it. It\u2019s just part of the nature of the game. Go down, stay confident, make those adjustments, come back better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mullins has lived it. He was the starting center fielder on Opening Day 2019, but the Orioles optioned him in late April and he didn\u2019t come back, tumbling down to Double-A. He became an All-Star two years later with the first 30\/30 season in franchise history.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never easy to kind of face your flaws in the game directly,\u201d Mullins said, \u201cbut it gives yourself a chance to kind of restart, really just face what your challenges are head-on and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Backup catcher Maverick Handley is confident that Kjerstad will handle the demotion and return to the club.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an inconsistent year for him, no doubt,\u201d Handley said. \u201cIn Triple-A, it was nothing but barrels, you know? Three-hundred with big-time pop, big-time juice. I feel like up here, stuff\u2019s a little better. He got into a little rut, and it\u2019s tough, man. In Triple-A, you don\u2019t have the pressure of, if you don\u2019t play well, you\u2019re not gonna play the next day. He\u2019s in there no matter what in Triple-A. I think here, there\u2019s a little pressure of, you look bad, you might not be out there the next day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know he\u2019d say this to you. His defense wasn\u2019t as good as he wants it to be. He knows there\u2019s some catches that he should be making there. The offense, for a guy that has light-tower power, he hasn\u2019t gotten to it as much as I\u2019m sure he would have liked. But it\u2019s tough. I don\u2019t necessarily know if him being optioned is a demotion as much as just like, \u2018Hey, you\u2019re the odd man out. We\u2019ve got some guys who are playing really good baseball in the outfield right now.\u2019 I hope that he can use this as a time to get back, look at some film, make some slight adjustments, and whenever his time\u2019s ready, be ready to come back up here and make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kjerstad will go back to Norfolk with the proper mentality. How else can he return to his Camden Yards locker later in the summer?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not gonna worry him at all,\u201d Handley said. \u201cReally, his personality type, he understands, and he knows he hasn\u2019t been playing as well as he wants to be playing, so I think this could be a really good reset for him. Is it gonna affect him mentally? No. He\u2019s way stronger than that. This is not gonna be very hard on his confidence at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yesterday\u2019s flurry of moves didn\u2019t touch Coby Mayo and seems to have provided even more runway for him. Ryan Mountcastle is going to be lost for a couple of months with a Grade 2 hamstring strain \u2013 he was walking gingerly and with a noticeable limp yesterday, as you\u2019d expect \u2013 and making room for Tyler O\u2019Neill\u2019s expected return by next week seems much simpler with infielder Luis V\u00e1zquez replacing Mateo.<\/p>\n
Mayo started at first base again last night and interim manager Tony Mansolino expects him to stay on that side of the infield.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re probably gonna see him more at first base,\u201d Mansolino said. \u201cUnless there\u2019s a specific need, I doubt we see him at third base right now. I think we\u2019re gonna try to simplify it for him a little bit and focus mostly on first, and we\u2019ll go from there. But just continued growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been doing great out there. He\u2019s grown defensively over the years for me. I think the coaches are doing a great job with him at first base, so just continue to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayo went 0-for-3 last night with a strikeout and double play, and Ram\u00f3n Ur\u00edas pinch-hit for him in the ninth. Mayo is batting .147 with a .392 OPS but drew praise on the West Coast trip for his improved at-bats, including his first career extra-base hit and stolen base in Sacramento.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we are being patient, and we see great signs of progress with Coby,\u201d Mansolino said. \u201cAny time a young player comes in, I think you\u2019re weaving them into the big leagues in a certain way. You think back to a couple of years ago\u00a0when Westburg came up and looked at how Westy kind of weaved himself into the big leagues, and how he\u2019s used, I think it\u2019s probably a pretty good blueprint for Mayo, and we\u2019ll continue to do that with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think anytime a young player is here, I think every young player is probably built differently. I don\u2019t think we treat everybody the same by any means. I think that\u2019s probably a myth, but I think a lot of smart people get together and they ask, \u2018What\u2019s best for the kid, how do we handle this kid? And then also balance trying to win the game every night, which is the most important thing. So I think we\u2019re trying to marry the two together, and I\u2019ve said before, I think most teams in the big leagues are trying to balance development and winning on a nightly basis in some form or fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orioles got rid of their jet lag from the West Coast trip. They really are healthier. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,47,2538,5,77,583,1752,915,1128,4,125,579,578],"class_list":{"0":"post-97688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baltimoreorioles","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-cedric-mullins","13":"tag-coby-mayo","14":"tag-heston-kjerstad","15":"tag-jorge-mateo","16":"tag-maverick-handley","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-orioles","19":"tag-orioles-featured","20":"tag-roch-kubatko"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114668985736697367","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}