Baltimore Orioles: Dylan Bundy Leads The Way In May

Baltimore Orioles’ power-hitter Renato Nunez has been one of the top hitters in baseball over the past few weeks.

Over the last two weeks, the Baltimore Orioles have seen a resurgence of power from the bat of Renato Nunez. In fact, the Orioles designated hitter leads all of baseball with seven home runs in the last 14 days. Only Joc Pederson (253) and Juan Soto (255) have a higher wRC+ during this span (242 for Nunez).

It really was a tale of two-halves for Nunez in May. Those numbers listed above are from May 18th-May 31st. From May 1st-May 17th, Nunez ranked dead last in wRC+ with a -38 mark. He hit just .102, failed to record a single walk, and struck out more than 30% of the time.

His overall May slash line of .217/.265/.522 isn’t very impressive, so let’s focus on the last two weeks. That may be against the rules here, but we’re talking about the 2019 Baltimore Orioles so does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?

Since May 18th, Nunez is slashing .349/.429/.907 with seven home runs, 15 RBIs, and three doubles. His strikeout rate of 16% is nearly half of what it was during the first half of the month.

Nunez is drawing much-deserved attention, but will he stick around once Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo return to the active roster? That’s a tough question. While I believe most fans would agree that they don’t want to see Trumbo on the field again, Mike Elias is going to try and showcase Trumbo’s health to potential suitors and Chris Davis has drawn the praises of Brandon Hyde all season.

Nunez has as well, but he doesn’t have a massive contract attached to his name and doesn’t have the versatility that Stevie Wilkerson does. I don’t know what will happen, but I do know that a lot of people won’t be happy, regardless. Not that anyone is ever happy about any decision made by their favorite team.

Let’s talk about one more big May performance- everyone’s favorite pitcher and inspiration for overused puns.