Ryan Mountcastle Setting the Path for Young Baltimore Orioles

Ryan Mountcastle‘s hot start helps keep the Baltimore Orioles close in the race for a spot in the expanded playoffs.

23-year-old Ryan Mountcastle is having a terrific start to his MLB career with the Baltimore Orioles. He’s batting .383 and slugging .633 for the Birds in 60 at-bats.

The last time the Orioles made the playoffs was 2016, but with Mountcastle in the lineup, the chances for the Birds to squeak in still exist.

The Orioles are currently sitting just a tad under .500 right now. They are right in the race for a potential Wild Card spot in the playoffs. With the season being shortened due to COVID-19, this is both an advantage and a disadvantage for the Orioles. The Orioles are not in a spot where they can drop a few games in a row as only a few games remain on the schedule.

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Mountcastle joined the O’s on August 21. At that time, the team was 12-14 with a .461 record. Since he’s joined the team, the record has been 8-9. But, since he hit his first home run on August 30, the Orioles have been 6-4. Unfortunately, on August 30, he hit two home runs, but it wasn’t enough to get the win. In his 17 games with the O’s, he’s had 7 games with more than one base hit.

Mountcastle getting moved up to the big leagues has been huge. Since he got the call to the Majors, he has made a huge impact on the Orioles making it a tight run for the AL East. I’m confident that Mountcastle can get the O’s into a great position to be successful and get the AL East crown.

Like Gary Thorne said in the post-game conference after the 2019 season concluded, O’s fans had to be patient. We were. And now we get to enjoy the fruits of our patience watching Mountcastle perform like a seasoned veteran.

Some may think that it’s way too early to be talking about Mountcastle being one of the premier players in the league, but with the shortened season, anything can happen. This season for the Orioles has been unique, but things are looking good for the future.

I truly believe that either Anthony Santander or Ryan Mountcastle will be the team’s MVP candidates for the 2020 season.