Fuller on Holliday's improvement: “Wisdom comes through experience"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Orioles infielder Jorge Mateo remains with the club on its road trip that concludes today. He’s on the 60-day injured list with a left elbow subluxation.

Mateo hasn’t undergone surgery at this point. He’s got another medical appointment that the club says will determine the plan.

Mateo wears a brace on his arm occasionally and is allowed to remove it.

The Orioles go for another Tropicana Field sweep this afternoon with Coby Mayo making his first start in his home state.

Mayo is 0-for-13 with two walks and eight strikeouts since his promotion.

“Small sample, obviously, but in Cleveland it was really good to see the at-bats on sliders down and away,” said co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller. “I thought he controlled the zone really well. And then he started to see, ‘OK, they’re only throwing me sliders,’ and making adjustments to that. So he’s had a couple days to work through a few things.

“He came up and said, ‘OK, whatever you have for me, give it to me.’ So small tweaks, just a little bit more length with his hands on the loading process to give him a little more time to be adjustable on the breaking balls. But that lineout he had in Toronto I think points in a really good direction. Hopefully he gets that first knock today and relaxes a little bit and then goes on a streak.”

Mayo was on the field early today taking more ground balls at third base.

Adley Rutschman is on the bench today. Austin Slater is in left field, Colton Cowser is in center and Anthony Santander is in right. Eloy Jiménez is the designated hitter.

Jiménez is 11-for-21 with the Orioles.

“Day One with Eloy, we sat down and we said, ‘Here’s what we see.’ He said, ‘Let’s get to work.’ And it works really well when you match up your plan with what they want to do,” Fuller said.

“If he wants to hit the ball in the air more often, he hits the ball extremely hard, so he’s working really hard in the cage every day. While we make those adjustments we told him to just keep getting hits, make it look good out there until he starts elevating it a little bit more.”

Jackson Holliday is batting eighth. He’s homered in four of the last six games and a much different hitter than during his 2-for-34 period in his first major league stint.

“Wisdom comes through experience,” Fuller said. “No matter how many times you tell the Triple-A guys it’ll be a little bit different, the pitchers will be a little bit better, you come up here, you experience it. And then, for the guys like Colton, for Jackson, you go back down and you have a plan in place and wider base, stronger positions for his body to be in. And then everything’s just a little bit smaller.

“His leg kick, his hand positioning, the moves are a little bit smaller, so you just get that little bit of time to make better decisions. Yesterday, that sinker that he hit out, it was a micro-adjustment if you look at that swing. Just a little bit more adjustable, stronger positions, giving him a little bit more time. It’s a credit to the development staff going down to Triple-A and making those adjustments, and when coming back here, learning from that experience and being really good right now.”

Albert Suárez stays in the rotation as Grayson Rodriguez’s replacement after his five scoreless innings in Toronto. He started against the Rays on May 31 in Baltimore and allowed one run in five innings.

In his one career start in St. Petersburg, Suárez surrendered three runs and five hits in 4 2/3 innings. It happened in his rookie season with the Giants in 2016. A small and old sample size.

The Orioles are the only 70-win team in baseball. They lead the Yankees by one game in the division race.

This is the first time since 1979 that the Orioles are first to 70.

A victory today would make the Orioles 9-1 against the Rays this season and 7-0 at Tropicana Field.

The Rays are starting left-hander Jeffrey Springs, a former 30^th-round draft pick who’s appeared in two games this season and allowed six runs and 12 hits in 8 2/3 innings. Springs has faced the Orioles 12 times in his career, with only two starts, and posted a 2.45 ERA and 1.182 WHIP in 22 innings. He’s struck out 30 batters.

Ryan Mountcastle is 3-for-7 with a double.

For the Orioles

Colton Cowser LF
Anthony Santander RF
Gunnar Henderson SS
Ryan Mountcastle 1B
Eloy Jiménez DH
Austin Slater LF
Coby Mayo 3B
Jackson Holliday 2B
James McCann C

Albert Suárez RHP

The Nationals are starting right-hander Jake Irvin and left-hander DJ Herz in the series at Camden Yards that begins Tuesday night.