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Two more Orioles went on the injured list in the past two days. Interim manager Tony Mansolino and his staff are basing lineup decisions on availability as much as data and hunches.
Positions and batting orders are shuffled like a deck of cards. Left-right matchups aren’t given the usual consideration.
Jackson Holliday seems immune to much of it. He’s the leadoff hitter most of the time, with Gunnar Henderson moving down to third. That’s one of the easier calls to make.
Holliday hit his first career leadoff home run this afternoon, lining a fastball from White Sox starter Davis Martin deep onto the flag court. Coby Mayo collected his first major league RBI and caused benches and bullpens to empty, Jorge Mateo smacked his first home run of the season, and the Orioles won 4-2 before an announced crowd of 23,470 at sunny Camden Yards.
The Orioles (21-36) have won back-to-back games for the fourth time this season and claimed their fourth series. They’ll go for their first sweep since the final three games of the 2024 season in Minnesota.
Holliday saw a fastball, changeup and cutter from right-hander Martin in his at-bat. The ball left his bat at 108.8 mph for his seventh home run, and the fourth leadoff shot by the Orioles this year. It marked the fourth-highest exit velocity of his career.
“He’s doing great," Mansolino said, "and I told him when I took over the seat, I said: ‘J, you’re going to play every day, right or left. We’ll give you a blow when we need to give you a blow, essentially. It might be against a righty if you need one. It might not just be a lefty. In terms of hitting leadoff, you’re going to be in there for the time being.’
"We’ll see where it goes. We’ve got a lot of good players coming back. You look at the bottom line on the kid right now. It’s pretty impressive, so he’s done well in the spot, and everybody knows who he is. That’s for sure.”
Mateo started again in center field, where he’s had a few adventures, and fouled off four pitches in the fifth before launching a cutter to right-center after Dylan Carlson doubled. He began the day with a .196 average and one RBI.
"Super happy, yeah," he said via interpreter Brandon Quinones. "I think, obviously, it was very motivating because I helped the team win, and ultimately because of it, we won the game."
Mansolino went with the right-right matchup with all of the Orioles’ starting outfielders on the injured list and Ryan O’Hearn needed at first base after Ryan Mountcastle strained his right hamstring.
Perhaps the splits came into play. Left-handers were batting .211/.286/.368 against Martin this season and right-handers were batting .297/.333/.455. But the bench consisted of backup catcher Maverick Handley, infielder Emmanuel Rivera, utility player Cooper Hummel and outfielder Jordyn Adams, who had his contract selected today.
Mayo, another right-handed hitter getting the start, lined a two-out single into left field in the fourth to score O’Hearn for a 2-0 lead, his first RBI in 61 plate appearances. Mayo got caught in a rundown, bumped into second baseman Lenyn Sosa and fell on the infield grass. The contact was light, and Sosa walked up to Mayo - who remained in a sitting position - with arms spread and began jawing at him.
Mayo stood and gave Sosa a light shove as he began walking to the dugout, Sosa did the same to Mayo’s back, and the field became a sea of orange and black jerseys. No punches were thrown and order was restored quickly.
“Yeah, obviously, just trying to get to second base and trying to get into scoring position for Heston (Kjerstad)," Mayo said. "Cuts it off and got into a rundown. Obviously, just being told in the minor leagues to try to stay in a rundown, and I thought he was in the base line and trying to get some contact. Didn’t mean for it to escalate. I wasn’t trying to do that. It just did.
“The guys always have your back. I think everyone in here will fight for one another - not literally, but, you know, everyone has each other’s back. I think that’s just what happened. Looking out for teammates, and we’ll do the same thing for them.”
"It was a bit weird," Mateo said, "but we're there to support him, and so when that happened, that's exactly what we did."
Mansolino had no issues with Mayo's intent.
“You know, man, I was excited that he was aggressive on the bases," Mansolino said. "The throw was low. They did a good job of cutting it. Coby got himself in a rundown right there. He probably thought that the play at the plate was going to be closer than it was. He's new to the big leagues, learning the speed of the game. He gets himself in a rundown.
"Now he's an infielder, right? So when we're in spring training talking about rundowns, one of the things that we constantly talk about with our infielders is not crossing the line because if there's contact with the infielder then it's a, I think they call it a Type 2 obstruction, and then you automatically get second base. So, I think instinctually Coby kind of sought out the contact right there with the infielder, which, visually, it probably didn't look the best but I think most coaches will probably go, ‘Not a bad baseball play.’ Just didn't work (in) our favor. Umpire made a good call.”
Dean Kremer did some scattering again with hits, allowing six in six innings, but he held the White Sox to one run on Andrew Benintendi’s RBI single in the fifth. He tossed 5 1/3 scoreless with seven hits in his last start in Boston. Traffic doesn’t rattle him.
"I mean, it’s part of the job," he said. "You can’t get everybody out every time, so it’s about maximizing your margin for error and minimizing damage as much as you can throughout the lineup. I feel like I did a pretty good job of that today.”
Kremer threw a season-high 102 pitches, struck out seven and left to a standing ovation. His ERA is down to 4.70.
The White Sox wasted a walk in the first inning, singles in the second and third, and two singles in the fourth. Josh Rojas walked with two outs in the sixth and was stranded.
"We need to throw up zeros right now with where everything's at," Mansolino said. "There's a lot of pressure on the pitchers to throw up zeros. They feel it. They want to win these games. They kind of understand where we're at with the offense and guys not being here right now. So, Dean-O answered the bell. Did a great job.”
Yennier Cano surrendered a run in the seventh to reduce the lead to 4-2. Seranthony Domínguez stranded Keegan Akin’s runner and one of his own in the eighth, and Félix Bautista earned his 10th save after throwing 29 pitches yesterday and walking two batters today. He struck out three and threw 23 pitches.
"That’s not a thing that we don't communicate about," Mansolino said. "That's very heavily communicated before the game. It's between him and the pitching department and they'll give me a card, we'll talk about it and we'll come to the conclusion that he's available or not. So I thought it was a big step for him that, after 29 pitches, to kind of come back out. This was his second back-to-back in, I think, a span of probably 10 days. So I think these are important steps for him to kind of get back to the consistency that we're looking for and the guy that we want.”
"Throwing close to 30 pitches yesterday and throwing a handful more today, definitely a test he hasn’t been through in quite some time," Kremer said, "and it’s good to see him work through it and come out on top.”
The Grayson Rodriguez bobblehead distributed served as a reminder of the team’s poor health. He’s one of 12 players on the injured list. Cedric Mullins was the 11th yesterday and Mountcastle made it a dozen this morning. Adams was a defensive replacement in center field in the ninth, the 46th player used this season.
Mateo and Kjerstad raced into right-center in the eighth inning and slammed arms reaching for the ball. Kjerstad made the catch and Mateo took the brunt of it on his surgically-repaired elbow. Assistant athletic trainer Mark Shires checked on him, and he stayed in the game and drew a leadoff walk in the bottom of the eighth. But it was the latest scare.
“It was an uncomfortable moment, just because I went through it," Mateo said. "But thankfully, I'm doing good right now."
“Jorgie’s good right now," Mansolino said. "Obviously, we’ll see how he wakes up tomorrow. That’s the arm from last year. That’s the glove arm. You’ve got an infielder out there playing center field. You have a young right fielder. I think things like that happen. We feel fortunate that nobody got hurt. We didn’t have Part 2 of Jorgie’s collision from last year, and then two, we got the ball, because that would have been ugly had we not.”
The Orioles must play through any adversity. They don’t have a choice. And the last-place White Sox are making it a little easier this weekend.
"Guys are starting to get comfortable in their positions," Kremer said. "I think there’s been less platooning or, it’s consistently the same guys in the lineup, I guess. Guys are getting their reps in. I think for everybody, not just for position players but for pitchers, as well, getting in there more often than not is easier to get into a rhythm and I feel like guys are starting to hit their stride.”
