Here, in a season that’s been confusing and frustrating, are a few candidates for “Orioles Low Point of 2026”:
- May 20, when a blown 3-1 eighth-inning lead against the Rays (lost 5-3) dropped the O’s to 21-29, eight games under .500 — their worst mark of the season at that point. Not only that, but MASN analyst Ben McDonald got in hot water for saying, of this team: “You either do or you don’t. And right now, the Orioles don’t.”
- June 25 vs. the Angels, 7-6 in 10 innings. Baltimore chased the Angels’ starter after three innings, didn’t score again until the 10th, then Keegan Akin and Alonso failed to cover first on what should’ve been a game-ending grounder—the tying run scored, and the Orioles got walked off on a check-swing bunt.
- July 28, 2026, vs. Detroit: Dean Kremer allowed a career-worst eight runs in four innings, his ERA leaping up a run-and-a-half in one 14-0 loss, the worst of the Orioles’ season. It made you question your faith in everything: Kremer, this team, the mercy of the universe.
Now, for a young hitter who’s also been confusing and frustrating, not to say quite often bad, here are a few candidates for “Coby Mayo Low Point of 2026”:
- May 7, vs. Marlins: With the game tied in the ninth, Miami’s Javier Sanoja hit a chopper to Mayo at third. He bobbled it on an in-between hop, recovered enough to throw, but bounced the ball past Pete Alonso at first, letting the winning run score in a 4-3 walk-off loss. At the time, Mayo was hitting .152/.218/.283 to a .521 OPS, and carried a .922 fielding percentage. Also he’d made 66 errors across five minor-league seasons at third (.911 fielding percentage there too), so this wasn’t a one-off.
- June 6, vs. Toronto: Mayo went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in a 6-4 loss, bringing his season average to below the Mendoza Line. He was then benched for the series finale the next day.
- June 12, vs. San Diego: Not even a week later, Mayo again struck out three times and didn’t reach once. His average dropped to .192 and he was again benched the next day. Blaze Alexander started getting a lot of his reps, and ran with the opportunity,
Fans were starting to lose faith in Coby Mayo around the time they lost faith in this Orioles’ team, late spring/early summer. Mayo’s May 7 fiasco, his fourth error of the season, prompted a Baltimore Banner column by Kyle Goon, arguing
the Orioles were “setting him up to fail” by keeping Mayo at third. It made sense; there wasn’t much good to see.
Mayo had a rough spring (.190/.239/.262 in Grapefruit League play). He hit well south of the Mendoza Line for most of May, going .174/.242/.321 with a strikeout rate north of 30 percent. And he certainly wasn’t playing good defense.
But this is a redemption story, because Coby Mayo, from a hapless-looking Big Bird at the plate, is right one of his team’s hottest hitters. July has been the place where Mayo figured out something. The splits have been excellent: over his first 74 games, he hit .193/.264/.395 and OPS’d .659. In his last ten, it’s been .296/.345/.630 with a .974 make.
The power turned into something, and it’s delivering great moments in spades. Here’s a 420-foot bomb off Cubs left-hander Caleb Thielbar into Camden Yards’ second deck in left — only the eighth ball ever to land there since the park opened in 1992.
By July 27, in an 8-5 win at Detroit, Mayo had hit his 14th homer of the season, a two-run shot off reliever Brenan Hanifee that capped a three-homer night for Baltimore (Leody Taveras and Tyler O’Neill also went deep) with the Wild Card race and the trade deadline both bearing down.
Two nights later, in a wild 10-9, 12-inning comeback from 7-0 down against Tarik Skubal and the Tigers, Mayo’s two-run triple in the eighth tied the game at 7-7 before Colton Cowser won it in extras.
The caveat on the turnaround: entering that July 27 game, Mayo’s platoon split was stark: .280/.352/.720 against lefties, .152/.215/.234 against righties. Of his 14 home runs, only three had come off right-handers.
But this last week offers a real, if tiny, counterpoint. The Hanifee homer and an RBI single off starter Keider Montero on July 27 marked Mayo’s first multi-hit game against a righty since May 7 — and it was immediately followed by the triple off right-hander Drew Anderson two days later. Two productive games against right-handed pitching in three days doesn’t erase a two-month sample, but it’s the first stretch all year where Mayo’s splits look to be closing.
Mayo’s role has been a moving target all year. First base is blocked by Pete Alonso, third base complicated by his own defensive limitations and by Blaze Alexander’s emergence there. When Alexander fractured his hand in mid-July, Mayo got an everyday runway at third again; before that, he’d been ticketing mostly to DH. That instability is why his name keeps surfacing in trade conversations even amid the hot stretch. We’ll what happens as the Orioles are playing both buyers and sellers right now. Mostly, it’s other names they’ve been allegedly shopping. But perhaps another team wants to take a flier on a gangly, poor-fielding right-handed slugger.
Maybe even more so as Jordan Westburg’s shadow looms over all of this: the third baseman underwent Tommy John surgery this year and is done for 2026, with a target return early in 2027. When healthy, Westburg profiles as Baltimore’s starting third baseman, which would squeeze the infield picture further. Will Mayo still be an Oriole by 2027, and if so, at DH? Or will he fly the coop come this trade deadline? Will he keep hitting? Regardless, there are reasons to keep watching the 6’4” righty who’s just now hitting his stride.
