Amid the losses, there were indeed high notes

During a season that ended with 110 losses, there were still some things that were positives and/or just plain fun about the 2021 season. And it's not that starting next year that we won't still look back. We will. But today, on the final day of the 2021 calendar, we take another look back at the Orioles season.

Here are some of the best things we saw, wrote about and talked about this year.

No. 1 - Trey Mancini played in 147 games: After dealing with cancer and chemotherapy treatments, Trey Mancini missed the shortened 2020 season. So just the sight of seeing him play so many games and take 616 plate appearances and be back was wonderful to these eyes and all O's fans everywhere. It was a blessing to have him back.

The fact that Mancini's numbers took a hit from his great 2019 year was predictable and even understandable. It was a year where he was both knocking off rust and building back endurance. His OPS was .899 with 35 homers in 2019 and .758 with 21 homers last season. His OPS was .791 in the first half and .711 after that.

In July, Mancini had Birdland screaming and cheering at their televisions when he finished second to the Mets' Pete Alonso in the Home Run Derby competition at the All-Star Game. It was a national pronouncement of what O's fans already knew: Mancini was back.

Mancini hit career home runs No. 99 and 100 June 20 versus Toronto. He became the fastest player in Orioles history, who began their career with Baltimore, to reach 100 career home runs, doing so in 531 games. He is the 28th player in franchise history to hit 100 career home runs in an O's uniform.

Now an old and still lingering question resurfaces - how much longer will he wear that uniform? He can be a free agent at the end of the 2022 season. To this point there has been little buzz or much reported about his getting a long-term contract. All possibilities are still in play including a new contract, a trade and/or his chance to move on via free agency.

But having him back for me was easily the best development of the year.

No. 2 - Cedric Mullins went 30/30: The player who began the 2019 season batting .094 and was sent all the way down to Double-A Bowie was also the same player to become the first Oriole with a 30-homer, 30-stolen base season. A remarkable turnaround.

Mullins dropped switch-hitting before the year began and it made a huge difference. In 2020, Mullins batted .171 with an OPS of .502 batting right-handed versus southpaws. Last season, batting left-on-left, his numbers were .277/.788.

He was the unanimous choice as the Most Valuable Oriole, won a Silver Slugger Award, was one of seven finalists for the Hank Aaron Award and finished ninth in voting for the American League Most Valuable Player.

Mullins attacked the first pitch quite well, batting .435 with an OPS of 1.291 and seven first-pitch homers. He also hit 22 of his 30 homers at Oriole Park, where he posted an OPS of .959 compared to one of .793 in road games.

Mullins batted .291/.360/.518 overall and his OPS was .878. He had an OPS of .632 from 2018-2020. His OPS+ for his career was 72 heading into 2021 and then was 135 for last year. He became the 12th player in major league history to record at least 30 home runs, 35 doubles, five triples, and 30 steals in a season, and the first since Mookie Betts in 2018.

No. 3 - John Means pitched a no-hitter: Means won just six games this past season, winning six of his 21 starts, but his victory on May 5 was special. He beat Seattle 6-0, pitching the sixth no-hitter in Orioles history.

Means threw first-pitch strikes to 26 of 27 batters (an amazing feat in itself) as he pitched the first O's no-hitter since 1991 and first solo no-hitter since 1969.

Means entered the ninth with the no-hitter intact and had thrown 101 pitches. He got Dylan Moore to foul out on a 2-2 pitch, fanned Sam Haggerty on a 2-2 changeup for the second out, and then J.P. Crawford lined out on the first pitch and the no-hitter was complete.

A remarkable pitching performance as Means improved to 4-0 and lowered his ERA to 1.37 at that point in the year with a 113-pitch gem.

The other previous Orioles no-hitters:
* Hoyt Wilhelm versus the New York Yankees on Sept, 20, 1958
* Steve Barber and Stu Miller versus Detroit on April 30, 1967 (The Orioles lost 2-1)
* Tom Phoebus against Boston on April 27, 1968
* Jim Palmer versus Oakland on Aug. 13, 1969
* Bob Milacki, Mike Flanagan, Mark Williamson and Gregg Olson at Oakland July 13, 1991

No. 4 - Ryan Mountcastle had a slow start, but a strong year: He hit just one homer in the month of April, but it was not long after that when he began raking and Mountcastle had a big 2021 season. He was well on the way to establishing himself as a proven middle-of-the-order big league hitter.

He didn't win the AL Rookie of the Year Award, finishing sixth, but he did finish ahead of Hall of Famers Cal Ripken Jr. and Eddie Murray on the club's single-season rookie homer list. Mountcastle finished atop that list with 33, breaking Ripken's record of 28 from 1982 on Sept. 16.

Mountcastle's 33 home runs led all major league rookies. And he became the third rookie in the American League since 1990 to record a 33+ home run season (Aaron Judge of the Yankees had 52 in 2017 and José Abreu of the White Sox had 36 in 2014). Mountcastle's 33 home runs are tied for the ninth-most by a rookie in AL history.

All that after he batted .196/.229/.286/.515 in the season's first month with one homer and seven RBIs. Starting May 1, he batted .266/.324/.528/.853 with 32 homers and 82 RBIs in 119 games. He produced an OPS+ of 112 and that mark is 117 for his 179 career big league games.

He was named AL Rookie of the Month for June, his first such career award, as he batted .327/.382/.634 and led AL rookies in average, slugging, OPS (1.015), home runs (9), extra-base hits (13) and RBIs (26) during the month. He also recorded his first career three-homer game on June 19 versus Toronto, the second three-homer game by a rookie in O's history. Nick Markakis did that also on Aug. 22, 2006 against the Minnesota Twins. It marked the 33rd three-homer game by a rookie in major league history.