BALTIMORE — If there was ever a time for Orioles first baseman Ryan Mountcastle to break out of a slump that has stretched from early July into August, it was Monday versus the Toronto Blue Jays.
There’s no other team Mountcastle has found more success against, this season or over his career. And despite a .170 batting average and a .435 OPS in his past 26 games entering Monday — a span that didn’t include a home run — the blast off Mountcastle’s bat in the third inning seemed to be almost an inevitability. The ball flew over the new left field wall for his fourth homer against Toronto this season in just five games.
When he got back to the dugout, home run chain placed around his neck, he picked up the large orange ‘O’ at the end of the gold links and examined it. He hadn’t worn it in some time.
