masn-baseballs-orioles.jpgWhen it comes to Boston outfielder Mookie Betts and his play this year against the American League East, he has been mediocre against three teams but sensational against one.
Bet you can guess which one. Or is that Betts you can guess?
Betts is crushing Oriole pitching, but batting a collective .223 combined against Toronto, Tampa Bay and New York.
In 11 games on the season against the Orioles, Betts is batting .426 (20-for-47) with three doubles, eight homers and 17 RBIs. He has a .471 OBP, a…

When it comes to Boston outfielder Mookie Betts and his play this year against the American League East, he has been mediocre against three teams but sensational against one.

Bet you can guess which one. Or is that Betts you can guess?

Betts is crushing Oriole pitching, but batting a collective .223 combined against Toronto, Tampa Bay and New York.

In 11 games on the season against the Orioles, Betts is batting .426 (20-for-47) with three doubles, eight homers and 17 RBIs. He has a .471 OBP, a slugging percentage of 1.000 and an OPS of 1.471 versus O’s pitchers.

He has five multi-homer games on the year and three have come in his last four games at Camden Yards, dating to a series that ran from May 30-June 2 and including last night’s game. In Boston’s 5-3 win over the Orioles on Tuesday night, Betts homered twice and drove in all five Boston runs.

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In his last four games at Camden Yards, Betts is 8-for-16 with seven homers and 13 RBIs. He has eight of Boston’s 20 homers this season versus the Orioles. Betts has not hit more than three homers against any other team.

Now here is how Betts has done versus the rest of the AL East:
* He is batting .239 with no homers and four RBIs in 11 games against New York.
* He is batting .289 with two homers and five RBIs in nine games against Tampa Bay.
* He is batting .164 with no homers and four RBIs in 13 games against Toronto.

So while Betts is batting .426/8/17 against the Orioles this year he is batting a combined .223/2/13 in 33 combined games against the Yankees, Blue Jays and Rays. They have certainly not been hurt very much by Betts this year. His output in one game last night matched or exceeded his output for the year against every other AL East team.

So should the Orioles just walk the guy each time he comes to bat tonight and/or pitch around him as many fans have suggested?

Well, how about just making better pitches as catcher Matt Wieters said last night? Wieters, Yovani Gallardo and Brad Brach all said that Betts hit “mistake pitches” for his home runs. Well, if he homers tonight, let’s hope he just put a great swing on a pitch that an Orioles hurler executed exactly as he intended. It’s certainly time for fewer mistake pitches to Mookie.

While he has seven homers in his last 16 at-bats at Camden Yards, Betts has hit just two homers in 139 at-bats this entire season against the rest of the AL East.

In their last two games the Orioles produced an incredible comeback win at San Francisco and then saw another attempt at a comeback thwarted by a division rival last night. So much for momentum in baseball. Tonight the Orioles simply need to try to keep Betts in the ballpark and get momentum back again in the series finale with the Red Sox.