Jon Meoli

Baltimore

Orioles Columnist at The Baltimore Banner

Orioles columnist, @BaltimoreBanner | Fmr: @baltimoresun, @SoxProspects | COYS | 11 handicap

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Articles

Heston Kjerstad: Ryan Mountcastle encourages outfielder to keep going

1 week ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Jon Meoli

Heston Kjerstad would probably look anywhere for a bit of hope right now. It turns out he doesn’t have to look far. The struggling young slugger’s first full season in the majors, which represents the most extended run of playing time he’s had at this level since debuting in September 2023, has been a challenging one for both Kjerstad and an organization that has waited to see what the 2020 No. 2 overall draft pick could do.
Ryan Mountcastle no longer has to worry about the left-field wall. Where is the power?

1 week ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Jon Meoli

On the day of the Orioles’ home opener in March, batting practice was the hitters’ first opportunity to test the dimensions of the new, closer left-field wall. Ryan Mountcastle’s first swing that afternoon was a low line drive that cleared the 363-foot marker, and felt like a sign of things to come. The benefit to Mountcastle’s power production that everyone expected all winter hasn’t materialized.
Inside the Dugout: What Tottenham can teach Orioles fans

1 week ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Jon Meoli

“17th and I don’t know how. We won it in Bilbao,” chanted Tottenham Hotspur fans. Don’t worry, the annotations and explanations are coming. You can start one Orioles newsletter with an out-of-nowhere soccer chant to the tune of a Shakira song, but make a habit of it and they’ll probably stop asking you to write an Orioles newsletter.
Jon Meoli: However it goes, the rest of this Orioles season is going to be weird

2 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Jon Meoli

When a team loses two-thirds of its first 48 games, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the remainder of the season means much. Even the expanded playoffs feel so far-flung an idea that the mention of them is kind of fanciful. Yet these Orioles are in a unique position, especially relative to other iterations of this franchise that were in this position. In 2018, it was so clearly the end of an era that the team’s pending dissolution was the only focus.
Jon Meoli: Adley Rutschman has regressed. So have the Orioles.

2 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Jon Meoli

As Adley Rutschman goes, so go the Orioles. Or is it as the Orioles go, so goes Adley Rutschman? For the first three seasons of the rebuild cornerstone’s career it was never really a question. The Orioles morphed into a winning team when Rutschman arrived on May 21, 2022. Rutschman’s fourth season has not been anything like the first three, for him nor the Orioles. It remains true that Rutschman is a talismanic figure of this period of Orioles baseball.
Inside the Dugout: Remembering the Brandon Hyde era

2 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Jon Meoli

The Brandon Hyde era. By virtue of Hyde’s six-plus seasons and 913 games in the manager’s seat, I’d say he gets an era. (Unless this is also the beginning of the end of the Mike Elias era, at which point Hyde’s era will be subsumed into those annals.) How will we remember it? It’s tough to remove the last 43 games from the mind, given how recent they are, and the context of an ending that arguably feels lower than any of the losing seasons at the beginning of his time.
Jon Meoli: Here are more changes that could be coming to the Orioles

2 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Jon Meoli

Interim manager Tony Mansolino is going to get more than a weekend to try to turn the Orioles around. He’s in that role, though, because the Orioles spent the first quarter of the season losing and putting any hopes of contending this year in serious jeopardy. Should the team continue on that path, the rest of this year will be a lot like what preceded it: completely counter to expectations.
Jon Meoli: O's collapse wasn't Brandon Hyde's fault, but he had to go

3 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Jon Meoli

Preakness Saturday in 2022 was the day the Orioles brought up Adley Rutschman, the game’s unquestioned top prospect and the crown jewel of their rebuild, and in doing so announced to the world that their losing days were coming to an end. They’ve won a lot since then, yet three years later, this third Saturday in May marks another transition.
Jon Meoli: Tomoyuki Sugano’s success stands out on underperforming Orioles

3 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Jon Meoli

Even after a bit of a hiccup Thursday, Tomoyuki Sugano remains the Orioles’ best starting pitcher this season — faint praise, to be sure, but considering the circumstances, not exactly a small feat. There were plenty of questions about his transition to Major League Baseball. Little about Sugano suggests that the incredibly decorated 35-year-old Japanese rookie would have this kind of success, other than that it’s nothing new to him.
Inside the Dugout: The Orioles are driving me crazy

3 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Jon Meoli

As far as I can tell, no one is calling for me to be fired or jailed. This has been my spring of reckoning all the same. The Orioles’ disastrous first quarter wasn’t what anyone expected, and that’s been hard on the fans, players, coaches, and front office. I’m in none of those categories, and in the spirit of this being an incredibly nuanced thought exercise that requires a level of precision I probably can’t pull off, let me make the first scalpel slice of many.