BALTIMORE—There are four days left until Thursday’s 6 p.m. trade deadline. This weekend, the Orioles have made one deal. On Friday, they sent left-handed reliever Gregory Soto to the New York Mets for minor league pitchers Wellington Aracena and Cameron Foster. On July 10th, they dealt another bullpen arm, Bryan Baker, to the Tampa Bay Rays for a Competitive Balance Round A draft pick, the 37th overall, which turned out to be high school outfielder Slater de Brun.
Undoubtedly, more trades are coming.
“There will be some adversity throughout the week, without a doubt,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “As we lose players that we love and have helped us for a couple of years win a lot of games, there are going to be some tough hugs and some tough goodbyes.
“In the end, we’re going to have to come out of this on Friday when we’re in Chicago, and we’re going to have to come out and play good baseball. The way things are lining up right now, it sounds like we’ll probably have [Trevor Rogers] on the mound Friday the way things land, but that could always change. We’re going to go out there and compete and do what we can and try to figure out how to win.”
There will be just under one-third of the season remaining post-trade deadline, 53 games, and the time will be important.
It will be important for Coby Mayo, too.
“He’s making a little adjustment in the box,” Mansolino said. “It’s not just the same swing. He’s going out and doing it. The hitting coaches have been there working with him, and they’ve made a recent adjustment, which has coincided with moving forward offensively. That’s exciting.
“When you see guys do that, and then they start to do that and take off, there’s some realness about that.”
Mansolino said Mayo is making improvements defensively at first base a priority, and he’s been preparing himself to play more.
“I know people want to see him play every day,” Mansolino said. “We’re not fools. It’s part of the design in all this, is to lengthen the runway right now and give him a chance to tread water for a little bit in the big leagues and hopefully he goes … It gives us a chance to ease Coby in to being the player we want him to be.”
There will be time to remember Cedric Mullins, who’s likely to be traded this week.
“A huge part of the turnaround,” Mansolino says of Mullins. “Cedric was here in those ’18, ’19, ’20, ’21 seasons that were ugly.”
Mullins was part of teams that lost more than 100 games in 2018, 2019 and 2021.
“Just to be part of the turnaround, you don’t ever lose that label,” Mansolino said. “It means something.”
After the deadline, it will be important for core players such as Colton Cowser and Adley Rutschman, who have missed significant time to injuries this year and underperformed, to boost their production.
“I think it’s maybe the normal second, third years in the big leagues-type stuff where you’re having to make a little bit of an adjustment,” Mansolino said. “There’s no scenario where we want to see these guys continue to struggle. There’s no scenario while they’re struggling where we want them to see stand pat.
“We want to see them make the adjustments. As the league has adjusted to them, they’re going to be forced to make adjustments as well.”
Rutschman was an All-Star in 2023 and 2024 and second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2022. Cowser was second in Rookie voting last year.
“Even though guys like [Cowser] and Adley have the ability to be five-, six-, seven-time All-Star-caliber players, there are going to be times where they struggle,” Mansolino said.
There’ll be plenty of new faces around, too. Catcher Samuel Basallo is likely to get his chance in the coming weeks. Outfielder Dylan Beavers, who’s had a quietly impressive at Triple-A Norfolk, should be coming, and perhaps infielder Jeremiah Jackson, who had a one-night introduction to the big leagues when he watched Friday night’s game from the bench.
Relievers Keagan Gillies and Houston Roth could get some major league time.
If it turns out the Orioles trade starters Zach Eflin, Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano, they’ll soon have Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells, who will pitch this week at Double-A Chesapeake. Cade Povich will soon rejoin the Orioles, and Brandon Young should get some more chances. So might Roansy Contreras, who can start and relieve and is 6-2 with a 4.01 ERA.
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