The Blue Jays lost last night in Sacramento and left the Guardians alone with the final Wild Card.<\/p>\n
The Orioles keep chasing it.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re three games back and trying tonight to clinch a series win over the Guardians at Camden Yards.<\/p>\n
Coby Mayo is the cleanup hitter tonight and serving as designated hitter.<\/p>\n
Mayo hit his 20th and 21st home runs yesterday, and his 16 against left-handers rank second in Orioles history after Gary Roenicke\u2019s 18 in 1983.<\/p>\n
You know what happened that season.<\/p>\n
Mayo also extended his hitting streak to 11 games. He\u2019s batting .279\/.331\/.574 in 42 games since the All-Star break.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe game is very unforgiving and it\u2019s a very tough league, especially when you\u2019re young and coming up and you have these high expectations,\u201d Mayo said. \u201cPeople think that you\u2019re just going to hit the ground running and be an All-Star by year one or year two, and that\u2019s just not realistic sometimes. Sometimes it takes longer, and I\u2019m still figuring it out.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing\u2019s ever done. You\u2019ve never figured it out in this game. So when you\u2019re feeling good and stuff\u2019s going your way, you just want to keep riding that as long as you can, because this game is super, super hard and, like I said, very unforgiving. You just don\u2019t want to ever underestimate the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayo slashed .193\/.264\/.395 in 74 games before the break. The Orioles didn\u2019t put him back on the shuttle, and now he\u2019s becoming an established major leaguer.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly in the year, it\u2019s tough,\u201d Mayo said. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to get off to a strong start. Everyone always wants to hit .300 the first month. You\u2019re trying to just start off hot, because it\u2019s easier to play when you\u2019re hitting really good than trying to play catch-up all year. Early in the year is also cold and I\u2019ve never been the best cold-weather hitter. But just happy that the results have been good recently.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second half of the season, he\u2019s shown that he\u2019s resilient,\u201d said manager Craig Albernaz. \u201cI mean, going through the first half, it\u2019s just like any young player navigating the ups and downs of the season. He did a great job of doing that. Now you look up, he has two of them today, his 20th and 21st of the year. One off a lefty, which he\u2019s been handling extremely well, and one off a righty.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s getting more confidence, especially his first at-bat when he drove it to right field, was a good sign for him, like we talked about, going the other way. Coby\u2019s starting to get confident and understand what he does really well in the box.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayo is hitting .323 with a 1.135 OPS against left-handers and .164 with a .513 OPS against right-handers. Fortunately for the Orioles, it\u2019s become an advantage to see a bunch of lefties lately \u2013 three in the Red Sox series and two more against the Guardians.<\/p>\n
They get right-hander Tanner Bibee tonight and lefty Foster Griffin in Wednesday\u2019s series finale.<\/p>\n
Asked about finding more starts for Mayo against right-handers, Albernaz said, \u201cIt\u2019s I guess a balance, and also we understand who the really tough righties are. And also, we have some good left-handed hitters, as well, so it\u2019s finding the spots.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Coby, even if it\u2019s a tough righty, he\u2019s still dangerous in the box, just staying diligent to approach. But yeah, it\u2019s a delicate balance, and that\u2019s what I talk to hitting guys all the time about in-game. Talk to Donnie (Ecker) just to see if I\u2019m missing anything, where we\u2019re at, if this is a good at-bat for him. The tougher ones is when it\u2019s a leverage spot with guys on base. But yeah, Coby, he\u2019s slowly this year becoming a real dangerous hitter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blaze Alexander is at third base, Leody Taveras is in right field and Colton Cowser is in center. Samuel Basallo is catching.<\/p>\n
Brandon Young is 9-3 with a 3.42 ERA and likely to receive votes for Most Valuable Oriole. He\u2019s got back-to-back quality starts with one run in seven innings against the Athletics in Sacramento and three runs in 6 2\/3 against the Red Sox. And he held the Rays to two runs in 5 2\/3 innings on Aug. 22.<\/p>\n
Young faced Cleveland last season and allowed three runs in 4 1\/3 innings. Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez homered.<\/p>\n
Bibee\u2019s 15 losses are tied with Shane Baz for most in the majors. Baz starts on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Bibee had three consecutive quality starts and seven of nine before his most recent outing, when he allowed five runs in four innings against the Blue Jays. He shut out the Orioles over six innings on April 17 and owns a 3.65 ERA against them in four career starts.<\/p>\n
Gunnar Henderson is 4-for-12 with two doubles and a home run against Bibee. Taveras is 4-for-11. Pete Alonso is 3-for-6. Heston Kjerstad is 3-for-5 with a double and home run, but he\u2019s on the bench.<\/p>\n
For the Orioles
Jackson Holliday 2B
Pete Alonso 1B
Gunnar Henderson SS
Coby Mayo DH
Samuel Basallo C
Dylan Beavers LF
Blaze Alexander 3B
Colton Cowser CF
Leody Taveras RF<\/p>\n
Brandon Young RHP<\/p>\n
Ryan Helsley is throwing live batting practice today at Camden Yards. Ryan Mountcastle and Christian Franklin are starting their hitting progressions. Franklin is in Sarasota.<\/p>\n
Update: Helsley totaled 24 pitches in his live batting practice session. He threw everything in his mix and his velocity was mid-to-90s, according to Albernaz. He also was in the strike zone.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe looked great out there,\u201d Albernaz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing is how he wakes up tomorrow, how he feels. That\u2019s going to be predicated on kind of like the next step. We\u2019re just trying to get a bunch of different plans in place and variables, but ultimately is how he responds from this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outfielder Luis Robert Jr. will rehab his injured left hamstring with the team instead of reporting to the Sarasota complex.<\/p>\n
The Orioles are 2-for-29 with runners in scoring position since the homestand began on Thursday.<\/p>\n
For the Guardians
Steven Kwan LF
Travis Bazzana 2B
Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez 3B
Jo Adell DH
Nathaniel Lowe 1B
Angel Mart\u00ednez RF
Patrick Bailey C
Petey Halpin CF
Brayan Rocchio SS<\/p>\n
Tanner Bibee RHP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Blue Jays lost last night in Sacramento and left the Guardians alone with the final Wild Card.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[251332,2320,108398,137858,831,53442,363,48262,148834,99],"class_list":["post-841227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-brandon-young","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-coby-mayo","tag-craig-albernaz","tag-featured","tag-lineups","tag-mlb","tag-orioles","tag-roch-kubatko","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}