For the Orioles, Coby Mayo has become one of the few nightly reasons to tune in.
The 24-year-old is in the middle of a strong second half even though his path to steady playing time has been anything but smooth. Blaze Alexander’s broken hand, Samuel Basallo’s absence, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand’s emergence all squeezed Mayo’s role, leaving the former top 100 prospect to keep fighting for a real runway. Now that Alexander is back on the IL and Tyler O’Neill is also out, Mayo ought to be in the lineup every day until this lost season runs out.
Baltimore’s lineup has plenty of issues beyond Mayo. The club still hasn’t settled on a ninth-inning answer, the rotation that carried the team early is fading, and the defense and baserunning continue to create problems.
Basallo is also clearly working through a lingering shoulder issue, while Pete Alonso’s scorching stretch has cooled. In that mess, Mayo’s bat stands out.
Manager Craig Albernaz said this week, “The second half of the season he’s shown that he’s resilient,” while also suggesting the Orioles may still prefer to shield Mayo from some right-handers. Albernaz added, “Going through the first half, just like any young player, navigating the ups and downs of the season, and now you look up … and Coby is starting to get confidence and understand what he does really well in the box.”
That confidence has shown up in the box score. Mayo had a two-homer game against Cleveland in a must-win series, connecting once off a lefty and once off a righty, then added another blast Wednesday night in a win. He has at least one hit in 12 of his last 13 starts, and the power production keeps stacking up.
The numbers are loud. Mayo leads all of MLB with a 1.127 OPS against lefties this season, and he’s just a few homers shy of the franchise’s all-time single-season record against lefties, which sits at 18.
Since the All-Star break, he’s second on the Orioles only to Alonso with a .911 OPS, along with a .578 slugging percentage. The strikeouts are still there - 43 in 147 plate appearances - but the pop has been enough to keep the profile afloat.
He has 10 homers and 18 extra-base hits in 37 starts since the break.
His work against right-handers has been more uneven, with an OPS below .650, but the Orioles have shown they’re willing to live with uneven production from regulars when the talent is obvious. Mayo’s power is the draw, and right now it’s carrying him.
There’s also the defensive piece. Mayo still doesn’t have a preferred position, and the Orioles have floated him between third base, first base and DH. Right field should be a serious consideration next year, but for now the more immediate answer seems obvious: keep him in the lineup and let the bat keep talking.
Encarnacion-Strand has been better at third, but Baltimore has spent enough time stalling young players by mishandling their roles and playing time. Mayo is showing what he can do when he gets something closer to a regular run, and the Orioles should spend the rest of this season finding out whether the surge holds.
Dylan Beavers deserves a look too. After a recent swoon, he’s started driving the ball to all fields again and should be given a similar stretch of opportunity, with more leadoff at-bats now that Alexander is down. Whether Baltimore follows through is another matter, because doing the right thing has not always come easily to Elias.
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