A few random takes as the homestand begins

A few random thoughts while we await the start of a nine-game homestand for the Orioles. The hope is they play with more pep in their step than they did during a lackluster 1-8 road trip where they were outscored 65-25.

The pitcher: Why has Mychal Givens regressed this year? From 2015-2017, Givens went 18-3 with a 2.75 ERA and allowed a slash line of .206/.290/.334. But this season, he is 0-7 with a 4.57 ERA and with a slash line of .246/.330/.357.

Givens' strikeout rate has dropped a bit this year from 29.8 percent in his first three seasons to 25.7 percent. His walk rate is slightly up from 9.0 percent to 10.4 percent.

Givens' pitch usage has changed a bit over the years. His fastball usage is on a three-year increase from 63 percent in 2016 to 71 percent to 77 percent this year. At the same time, his slider usage is trending down over those three years, from 30 to 20 to 14 percent. But the batting average against that pitch is strong in all three years. It was .183 versus his slider in 2016, .173 last year and .172 this year.

Last season, lefty batters hit .184 off Givens and this season that number is .274. That is a big difference and maybe that is a significant reason why his numbers look very different in 2018.

Givens was considered the closer in waiting and he's the Orioles' best option in a save spot right now. Maybe that role won't mean much to the rebuilding 2019 Orioles. But no doubt they'd like to see the talented right-hander get back to his pre-2018 form.

The hitter: Trey Mancini has turned around his season with his second-half play. While he went 1-for-10 in the Tampa Bay series, his second-half stats look much like his 2017 stats, when he finished third in the voting for the American League Rookie of the Year.

This season, before the break, he hit .216/.292/.363 with an OPS of .655. But since the All-Star Game, he's batting .282/.311/.492 with an OPS of .803. Mancini's OPS plus was 119 last season and is 115 in the second half this year.

Mancini seems to be back driving the ball often to right-center with some pop and seems to have found a way to relax and put less pressure on himself. It might be a lesson that will serve him well for years. He could be a future leader of the Orioles.

Few players seem to have more of what Buck Showalter calls "want to" than Mancini. In mid-July, for this interview, he told me his struggles were weighing heavily on him to the point he was taking them away from the field. All that want to started to get in the way about 24-7 for him.

"That is a fair assessment," he said during the interview right before the All-Star break. "I care about this more than anything in the world, almost to a fault. To whenever I leave the field a lot of times, I'm thinking about it a lot and carrying it with me everywhere I go. I am trying to get better in that aspect. I've never gone through anything like this and I'm having a tough time mentally how to figure out to best handle it. Because what I thought was a slump before has been totally redefined."

Mancini was working on a mechanical adjustment at that time that now seems to have taken hold. Staying back on the ball more and less weight on his front side at the point where bat meets ball. It's allowed him to bring those shots to right-center back into his daily game.

The possible trade: The Orioles may have to pursue a trade for Mark Trumbo this winter. Complicating this is Trumbo's right knee surgery and no guarantee that he will be ready for spring training. He has one year to go on his contract and is due $13.5 million in 2019.

Trumbo was getting his bat going when he went on the disabled list last month, but he's not been able to repeat his 2016 season. Then he hit 47 homers, drove in 108 runs and had an OPS of .850. He's hit 40 homers in 961 plate appearances since.

If the Orioles want to begin to look at some of their young outfielders, including Yusniel Díaz and Austin Hays, at some point during the 2019 season, they might need to open a roster spot among the outfielders, leaving Chris Davis and Mancini to split up time between DH and first base.