Who's left to handle the new outfield dimensions at Camden Yards?

The ball was hit, it lined up with the corner of the redesigned fence in left field, and an entire ballpark and press box held their collective breath and watched with fascination and maybe a pinch of fear.

Easily entertained? Perhaps. But this was the first time that the 90-degree angle at the bullpen area was going to influence an outfielder’s path to a ball.

Minnesota’s Nick Gordon ran out of room Monday night, went into a hard slide and slammed into it. Rougned Odor raced to third base for his first triple since 2019, the pre-pandemic days. Gordon stayed down on the warning track.

Don’t say he wasn’t warned. That corner didn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere.

Center fielder Byron Buxton made the throw back to the infield and checked on Gordon, who rose to his feet and stayed in the game. No harm done. But it provided an example of how playing left field at Camden Yards brings a unique set of challenges.

“That’s a dangerous spot, the way that wall was made,” said Austin Hays, who watched from the dugout before heading to left field the following inning. “There’s not many ballparks where you can be running wide open in left field and you’re running straight into a corner. I don’t know if there are any designed that way. Thank God he pulled up and he tried to go into a little bit of a slide, and it wasn’t bad. If he had kept running full speed, that would have been a really bad scene out there.

“You try to slow down before you get there. You want to make a play on the ball, but you can’t run full speed into the wall. You’re going to hurt something, you’re going to do a lot of damage to yourself. I think the way he played it was probably about as well as you could, go full speed for as long as you can, start to slow down and try to slide. But the padding doesn’t go all the way down. There’s like a six-inch gap at the bottom where it’s concrete underneath the pad, so I’m thankful that when he slid, he didn’t hit his knee on that concrete. I know that happened to Trey (Mancini) a couple years ago where he slid going down the left field line and he hit his knee on the concrete underneath the pad, so there is danger in that, too.

“I thought Buxton played it well, where he stayed on the shallower side. That way, if it does hit the wall and kick, there’s somebody there. So, I thought he played it well, and Gordon just defended himself against that gnarly part of the wall.”

Orioles first base coach Anthony Sanders also works as the outfield instructor, and he’s had to add a few pages to his lesson plan.

“This center field here, this area, gets up on the outfielders really quick,” he said. “To me, when other teams come in, if you don’t practice that, it could catch you. And now obviously with this new corner here, it’s our home ballpark, so we get a chance to work on it with communication and taking a peek knowing it’s there. But for a new team coming in, if you don’t work on it or understand the field, it could catch up on your in a hurry.

“It’s something every outfield coach practices. You go to Fenway, different corners and nooks. Different stadiums like that. So, definitely something we pay attention to.”

Sanders also anticipated a collision between Gordon and the wall.

“As soon as it was hit, I was sitting here and I watched it as it was developing,” he said. “It seemed like it was just slow motion. To me, it’s almost like you need to take a peek and see where you are. Just imagine you’re playing left field in Fenway with the wall. There’s really no foul ground area, so you have to maybe slide and get down early, knowing that you can’t just keep running through.”

“That’s what we talked about with our outfielders, how we treat that corner so we don’t run into it. Just have some awareness. But it’s been good for our pitching so far. Our hitters might not be happy, but for the pitching it’s worked out. And through the summer when the ball starts jumping a little bit more, things will even out a little bit more.”

The Orioles chose to get down to 26 players Monday morning by optioning outfielder Ryan McKenna and designating third baseman Kelvin Gutiérrez for assignment. Gutiérrez received most of the attention because he was the primary third baseman last September, batting .290/.347/.419 in his last 31 games, and the McKenna move came a day earlier. Waiting for the final transaction stoked the drama.

Manager Brandon Hyde noted how shedding McKenna hurt the bench, now down to three players, because the club lost a backup at every outfield position. McKenna and Hays are the only Orioles to start in left field at home this season. Anthony Santander did it on the road.

Who gets the first call at Camden Yards if Hays moves to center or the dugout? And if McKenna doesn't return today as a replacement for Tyler Nevin, who left last night's game with a sore groin?

“Probably Santander,” Hyde told me yesterday. “That’s probably who we’d go with right now.”

Is Santander up to it?

“I don’t know,” Hyde said, smiling.

“That’s why that was a hard thing to do, when we had to reduce the roster by two. So, it’s probably Santander.”  

Mancini heard about the dimensions in spring training and said, at least in a joking manner, that he wouldn’t be playing left. He repeated it after arriving in Baltimore for the home opener.

Ryan Mountcastle’s days in the outfield appear to be over. The “thud” you heard were hints dropped last season.

The roster as it’s now constructed could put Chris Owings or Jorge Mateo in left if it’s needed due to in-game maneuvering. Not an ideal arrangement, but doable in a pinch.

Hyde said the roster is set on a series-by-series basis. The Orioles could return to a four-man bench, go back to having an extra bullpen arm, etc. McKenna may be subjected again to some shuttling, though teams can option a player only five times per season under the new collective bargaining agreement.