For Ryan Mountcastle, it was a tale of two seasons in 2023

The 2023 season got off to a good start for the Orioles' Ryan Mountcastle. But it didn’t stay that way. On April 11 at Camden Yards, he tied a team single-game record with nine RBIs versus the Athletics. He homered twice in the game and hit a grand slam. An Oriole with nine RBIs had happened before just twice since the team moved to Baltimore in 1954. Jim Gentile drove in nine runs May 9, 1961 at Minnesota. And Eddie Murray did the same on Aug. 26, 1985 at California.

“Two greats,” Mountcastle told reporters that night of the first nine-RBI game in the majors since 2020. “To tie them in, I guess, any category is super special, pretty cool.”

So that was a special game and Mounty looked prime to have a big year.

And then he struggled and struggled some more. In early June, we learned he was dealing with the effects of vertigo, and he didn’t play again until July 9. When he took the field that day, he was batting .227 for the year with an OPS of .686.

Fans were not only questioning his presence in the lineup daily but also his future on the team in the long term. His critics seemed vast and were loud. When the season ended, we heard the sounds of mostly silence.

No longer seeing more than one baseball, Mountcastle started raking again, got big hits and at times was dominant versus lefty pitching.

But vertigo and left shoulder inflammation in September led to two injured list stints and he missed 32 games. Limited to 115 games and 470 plate appearances for the 2023 season, he hit .270/.328/.452/.779 with 21 doubles, one triple, 18 homers, 64 runs and 68 RBIs.

His OPS+ of 117 (100 is league average) was better than he put up in 2021 or 2022 and bettered only by his number for 35 games during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. The 117 was among the Orioles' best - topped only by Adley Rutschman (128), Gunnar Henderson (125), Ryan O’Hearn (122) and Anthony Santander (121).

Mountcastle posted an OPS of just .640 off right-handed pitching, much lower than his career .742 mark. But versus lefties, he batted .338/.398/.655/1.052. He ranked second in the American League and fifth in the major leagues off lefties in both slugging and OPS.

Mountcastle’s resurgence in the second half has put him in position to score big in arbitration. He is projected to see his pre-arb 2023 salary of $738,400 grow to a projected $4.2 million.

After the season, he was named a finalist at first base for a Gold Glove Award. The other AL finalists at the position are Anthony Rizzo of the Yankees and Nathaniel Lowe of the Rangers.

One area where Mountcastle improved late in the year is in the plate discipline department. For the year, he improved his 2022 walk rate from 7.1 to 7.9, still below AL average.

But this year his OBP was .269 in his first 70 games when he had only two games of two walks. He had six such games and an OBP of .418 his last 45 games. Yes, that was a big jump in that stat. He seemed to chase less and get deeper in counts. We’ve seen it before, a Mountcastle who can limit chase and swing only at strikes will do some big damage.

In a late season interview with co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller, I asked him about Mountcastle’s late-year gains in this area.

“His focus has been tremendous, and I think that stems from feeling healthy,” stated Fuller. “Going up there and feeling like himself. Right now, his swing decisions are improving a little bit. Where last year a two-walk game was a career-high, he has had multiple occasions as of late.

“For Mounty, he can send the ball a long way, but being able to just get on base when they present you with a walk, he’s been huge for us recently.”

Has Mountcastle turned a corner with an improved batting eye and less chasing?

“We’ll see," Fuller said. "Last year he ended the year really well with his swing decisions. But for a guy like Mounty, his profile his whole career has been high slug, a little bit of chase. When we decrease chase and stay in the zone and focus on the heart of the plate, he’s going to be in good shape. Stay focused on the simple things that work."

Mountcastle scored well in Statcast metrics as he has before, ranking in the top 11 percent in the majors in expected slugging, top 17 percent in exit velocity and top 21 percent in barrel percentage.

He even was among the top 21 percent in a metric called “baserunning run value,” which is an all encompassing baserunning stat.

If you dig deep into his stats for 2023, you find a couple of areas he scored differently than his past track record. One was hitting at a groundball rate of 44.3, well above 2021 (35.8) and 2022 (37.5). He also produced an OPS of just .805 when putting the first pitch in play. The Orioles as a team produced a 1.001 OPS on the first pitch and Mounty for his career has a 1.029 OPS on the first pitch. Maybe drawing more walks and improved plate discipline led to less aggressiveness early in the count. If that holds, that would be a real change for Mountcastle.

But this season ended with Mountcastle again showing his potent bat while getting some recognition for fielding and baserunning, too.

A few months ago, there were some questions about his O's future. There are fewer today.