The Baltimore Orioles are coming off a tough week filled with extreme highs and a long lows.
The Birds are coming off a 2-4 road trip, in which they won their series in New York against the first place Yankees but were swept by the Astros in Houston before coming home.
With a return home, the Birds will look to get back in track. Let’s see who made our list this week in the latest edition of The Great, The Good & The Ugly.
The Great: Adley Rutschman
Adley Rutschman has been doing everything he can to lead the Orioles and put them on his back. Over the past week, the de facto captain of the team has done everything to help get them going.
Between the two series, Rutschman would collect 11 hits and five walks, batting .458 for the week. The O’s All-Star backstop currently has an 11-game on-base streak headed into this week.
Rutschman also had a key throw out of a runner during an Orioles victory over the Yankees that helped secure the extra-inning victory.
For the season, Rutschman is slashing .302/.351/.479/.830 with 14 home runs and 53 RBIs, good enough so far to earn him the starting catcher job in this year’s All-Star Game.
The Good: Ryan Mountcastle
Ryan Mountcastle is becoming a steady rock and presence for the Orioles. Whether in the lineup smashing extra-base hits or playing Gold Glove caliber defense at first base, people are starting to take notice of how good he really is.
This past week, Mountcastle had his fair share of fun and made it hard not to consider him as “The Great” this week, though Rutschman did just a bit more. For the week, Mounty went 9-for-26 (.346 avg), picking up four doubles and seven RBIs, as he went three straight games collecting RBI doubles, posting three multi-hit games over the week.
The new vote leader for first base in All-Star voting, Mountcastle is now slashing .276/.320/.470/.790 with 11 home runs and 39 RBIs on the year. With his current pace, Mountcastle is projected to set career-highs in hits, doubles and walks.
With fans taking notice of Mountcastle’s all-around play, he is starting to get the recognition of being one of the best first basemen in the league.
The Ugly: Jorge Mateo
There for a while, Jorge Mateo was making it easy to avoid being in this category, but his rough month of June has made it too hard to overlook how mightily he is struggling at this point.
This last week alone, Mateo struck out as many times in five games as he has hits for the entire month (six). What’s worse is that for the month of June, Mateo has more strikeouts (eight) than runs (five), hits (six), RBIs (six) and stolen bases (two).
In the two series this past week, Mateo collected three hits (two of them in one game) in 17 at-bats (.176 avg). He did hit a two-run home run in Friday’s loss to Houston, but unfortunately, that was the biggest highlight of the week for Mi Hermano.
Mateo is slashing .176/.194/.353/.547 iso far this month. Overall, he’s slashing .229/.274/.431/.705 for the season with five home runs, 18 RBIs and 12 stolen bases.
The Orioles are back home this week to face the AL-Central-leading Cleveland Guardians for three and then a big four-game series against the defending World Series champions, the Texas Rangers.
Will Rutschman and Mountcastle continue to rake, and will Mateo turn things around? Who will make it to next week’s list, and who will look for the week to turn over to July? Be sure to tune in for the next edition of The Great, The Good & The Ugly.
Who stood out to you this past week? Let us know in the comments below! Make sure to follow The Baltimore Battery on Facebook, Twitter (X) and TikTok, and use the hashtag #baltimorebattery when sharing our content!
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