Cedric Mullins continues the work and tweaks to get his bat rolling

After hitting two balls last night that he felt were pretty squared up and neither resulted in a hit, O’s center fielder Cedric Mullins continues to work to get his stats more in line with his own expectations of himself.

While no one around the Orioles seems concerned about his current stats, they are well off what he posted during a 2021 season that ended with him as the unanimous choice for Most Valuable Oriole and finishing ninth for the American League MVP Award. He posted an .878 OPS and recorded the first 30 home runs/30 stolen bases season in Orioles history.

He set the bar pretty darn high last year.

“That’s on me. That is a good thing,” Mullins said this afternoon in the Orioles clubhouse.

Through 50 games he is batting .236/.296/.365/.662, and he is batting just .169 (11-for-65) with an OPS of .410 his past 16 games.

But he said he feels he doesn’t need to make any big changes to get his bat going, and O’s manager Brandon Hyde seems to agree. He said Mullins continues to get pitched inside often by opposing hurlers, and that his batting practice the past few days showed a shortened swing and a few good signs.

“I’ve been able to piece together a few at-bats to find some hits here and there and need to just keep working until I find a hot streak,” Mullins said. "I don’t think anyone is concerned with my performance. Look at how things started for Trey (Mancini), kind of similar. He was hitting the ball everywhere hard and he started to find some infield hits. Eventually, those balls he hit that were caught were finding holes, and now he’s on a roll. It’s a matter of continuing to trust the process.

“I’m probably around 200 at-bats of a potential 600 deep. So, lot of time.”

One area where Mullins is not far behind last season is with his current five homers and 16 RBIs. At the end of May 2021 he had six homers and 14 RBIs.

What feedback is he getting from the coaches?

“We look at a lot of video, and the thing is I’ve been putting a lot of good swings together," Mullins said. "The balls that I typically do good damage to I’m just missing. That is just baseball. Do what you can with it. Continue to put the work in, make small tweaks to continue to get better and make adjustments to the pitchers and keep playing hard.

“Making too big of a change can really mess someone up, especially mentally. So it’s typically something small that needs to be corrected or work on, and things will start to show themselves on the field. That is kind of where my focus is.

“I had two hard-hit balls yesterday (at 101 and 96 mph, resulting in fly outs) and I came in and messed around with the hitting coaches, saying ‘What do we change for tomorrow.’ He kind of looked at me crazy and he was like, ‘I don’t think we change anything’ and I said, ‘Exactly.’"

Mullins and the Orioles were shut out 10-0 and held to five hits Tuesday night. They had scored 69 runs in the previous 12 games and will try to get some offense going tonight when they face 2021 AL Cy Young Winner Robbie Ray (4-5, 4.75 ERA).