Hyde on Mountcastle, Mancini, Nevin, pitching and more

Ryan Mountcastle made it through yesterday's doubleheader without any physical setbacks, the only negative besides the losses being the five strikeouts in six at-bats.

Mountcastle is listed among the reserves this afternoon in Chicago, while Trey Mancini returns to the lineup as the designated hitter.

Two players that pass in the day.

"His hand's still a little bit sore," manager Brandon Hyde said during his Zoom call with the media. "Proud of him, how he handled yesterday. We kind of needed him to be in there, he played a little banged up and, for me, that was a good development day for a young player, learning how to play not feeling 100 percent. But still sore today. He just took batting practice. He feels OK, so he should be able to come off the bench and be ready to hit."

Mountcastle is batting .225/.255/.358 with 59 strikeouts in 184 plate appearances. Hyde said again that he's not surprised by the struggles.

"I think the sophomore slump is a legitimate thing," Hyde said. "Seen it many, many times. I've seen good players go down their second year. Need to make some adjustments dealing with failure for the first time, dealing with adversity, facing major league pitching. There's no breather. It's tough and it's just learning to be a major league hitter.

"Seen really, really good major league players go through a tough second year and learn how to adjust, and most of those guys had to go down, and that's league wide. If you look at the back of baseball cards, there's a lot of guys who went down after their rookie year. Had some success maybe early, had to make some adjustments to come back and now they're 10 years in the big leagues. It's not uncommon. So I was hoping that he would be able to pick up where he left off, but that's just not realistic in our game and how pitchers and advance guys have the information to pitch against young players.

"Ryan's just got to make the next step and make an adjustment. It's hard right now. I know he's frustrated and he's dealing, really, with failure for the first time in his career, and that is not easy to do, so you try to stay positive with the guy, try to help him out, and hopefully he can get on track."

Mancini told Hyde that he was available to start despite a sore elbow.

"Status is he told me he's good enough," Hyde said. "He took BP today. We texted this morning. Wanted to play, took batting practice on the field. I said, 'How you doing?' He goes, 'It's good enough to play.' So happy to put him in there."

Tyler Nevin is playing first base again today. In the opening game of yesterday's doubleheader, he became the 29th Orioles player since 1974 to record a hit in his first major league plate appearance. Cedric Mullins was the last, on Aug. 10, 2018.

Nevin was the fifth to collect an extra-base hit when he doubled to right field.

"That was an impressive piece of hitting off Dallas Keuchel," Hyde said. "It's always fun to watch a guy make his debut, it's even more fun to watch him have success in his debut and hear his family above our dugout. I'm sure that was a special moment for the Nevin family, and Phil was watching at home. I know that was a proud moment for him.

"Tyler has shown that in spring training, too. He's got a little pop. He's done that in Norfolk before he got here. It was nice to see him drive the ball the other way. I think there's some tools there. He was a high pick, so there's some power potential. Going to give him a nice look today, too."

Nevin also became the first player in Orioles history to make his debut on his birthday and the sixth in major league history to record a hit.

"It was a pretty sweet birthday," Nevin said yesterday. "I don't know if anything's going to top this for the rest of my life. It would have been nice to get a couple wins in there, but glad to have my family here and I could share the day with them."

How can this experience help Nevin, the 22nd-ranked prospect in the system, according to MLBPipeline.com?

"It's everything," he said. "It's a little bit of baptism by flame, I think. It's just exposure right away. I kind of experienced just a little bit with the short time I had in Triple-A, different than Double-A for sure, much more of a cerebral game and I'm sure the more at-bats I accumulate here, I'll learn it's even a better skill, more cerebral game up here, as well, and develop and get better that way."

The Orioles are deciding whether to activate reliever Hunter Harvey from the 60-day injured list tomorrow, which requires a corresponding 40-man roster move, or give him another rehab appearance at Triple-A Norfolk.

"We're still taking a look at some things," Hyde said.

Anthony Santander has an 11-game hitting streak, the longest active in the majors.

Here are the probable starters for the Twins series at Camden Yards, with Wednesday's slot open because of yesterday's doubleheader:

Monday: Jorge López vs. José Berríos
Tuesday: Bruce Zimmermann vs. Michael Pineda
Wednesday: TBA vs Randy Dobnak

Left-hander Zac Lowther is the scheduled starter for Norfolk on Wednesday.

Hyde said he won't bring back John Means on three days' rest, saying "definitely no," and doesn't seem interested in trying it with Matt Harvey.

"We have kind of an unusual schedule coming up with three off-days," he said, "so we're still kind of working through what the rotation is going to look like. That day might be a bullpen day, that day might be an opener, it might be somebody from Triple-A. We're going to see. Rainouts are nice at times, but it really screws your pitching up going forward from how to play it out, so that's something that we're going to talk about here the next couple days is that third day against Minnesota."

Here's Norfolk's lineup today:

Mason McCoy SS
Malquin Canelo 3B
Seth Mejias-Brean RF
Brett Cumberland C
Zach Jarrett CF
Ramón Urías 2B
Taylor Davis DH
Ryan Ripken 1B
Willy Yahn LF

Kyle Bradish RHP

(Jahmai Jones, Yusniel Diaz, Richie Martin and Rylan Bannon are on the injured list.)

Here's Double-A Bowie's lineup for Game 1:

Terrin Vavra CF
Joey Ortiz SS
Adley Rutschman C
J.C. Escarra 1B
Jaylen Ferguson LF
Robert Neustrom DH
Doran Turchin RF
Alexis Torres 3B
Cadyn Grenier 2B

Mike Baumann RHP

Rutschman hit a three-run homer in the third inning, his fifth of the season, and is 2-for-2. Baumann allowed one run and two hits with three walks in three innings.