Mountcastle on the O's rise to AL East lead and more on the Elias press conference

The Orioles' Ryan Mountcastle played on a team that lost 110 games in 2021 and finished 48 games out of first place with just 52 wins. As the series with the New York Yankees began last night, this 2023 O's club already had 62 wins, the second most in the majors.

The turnaround from last place team to winning club happened pretty fast and 2022 Orioles won 31 more games than that 2021 club.

Now the Orioles sit atop the AL East, a division they trailed by 6.5 games on July 1 and by six games on July Fourth.

“It’s crazy. I mean, you look back and just two years ago, we were nowhere close to where we are at today. The turnaround is pretty crazy and we’ve had a lot of fun doing it,” Mountcastle said Friday before the series opener in the Baltimore clubhouse.

“I think all the teams in this division are really good teams. Day in and day out when we face each other it is a big battle. This weekend is a good test for us,” he said.

And now with the trade deadline approaching on Tuesday when the Orioles will be in Toronto, the club is in buy mode, looking to add pitching talent to a roster that is already producing a season on a 100-win pace.

“Trade deadline, you never know what is going to happen,” said Mountcastle. “Last year, Trey (Mancini) leaving was a bit of a bummer, great guy and great teammate. But that is the nature of the game. Whatever happens this year we would welcome whoever comes to us with open arms. If anyone leaves, I don’t know, you just never know.”

The deadline can be an uncertain time for the players and they can find themselves checking for news and reports like the rest of us. But the game each night is a diversion, the best kind of diversion with a playoff spot and a first-place in the AL East at stake.

“At the end of the day you are out there playing your game and not thinking about it on the field. Then it will be over with. I don’t think too many guys are thinking about it right now, just trying to win games,” Mountcastle said.  

Elias’ press conference: Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias took questions from reporters for nearly 30 minutes Friday on the trade deadline and more.

Clearly the O’s are motivated to improve an already good team, one that Elias feels is good enough to make a deep playoff run.

“With the position that are players have put us in and how well things are going, it’s fair to say that if we get within reach of something, we’re going to reach for it a little bit to help this team. But we can’t set the minor league system on fire just because we’re in first place. It’s just our job to balance all that," Elias said.

Asked several times if the team can take on payroll, Elias kept indicating yes.

“We have latitude to make baseball moves and possibly those are adding payroll relatively significantly. But doesn’t mean we’re going to do it. The ball is in the court of the baseball ops department which is great. A testament to our management environment that we have here and how much trust this group has gotten from the partnership level, ownership level, John Angelos. It’s up to us to navigate this.”

Elias was asked about the innings loads for several of his starting pitchers. Any concerns there?

“It’s becoming more of a conversation. We’re trying to be mindful of indicators they might be exhibiting. … There is really not a ton of science or any science there. We try to use common sense, we try to use our expertise,” he said.

Elias was asked if, because it took years to build up the organization to become the No. 1 farm in baseball, does that make it harder to part with those prospects?

“No. I don’t think … that’s not going to make us hug those guys more than we should because we did a good job scouting and developing them. That’s not going to make us any more reluctant to make a trade. We’re making trades because we feel the value we are getting back is worth the value we are losing.”

Click here for even more quotes yesterday from Elias.  

Walk-off win: It took over five hours, counting the rain delay, but the Orioles produced a 1-0 walk-off win over the Yankees Friday night. They improved to 63-40 and maintained a 1.5 game lead on the Rays. 

Anthony Santander's second career walk-off homer ended the game and gave the Orioles their fifth shutout and fifth walk-off win of 2023. Click here to review the recap from last night.