The Baltimore Orioles hosted the Chicago White Sox on Saturday in a battle of American League lightweights. Both teams are a third of the way through nightmare seasons, but at least this White Sox team is mildly amusing compared to last year's catastrophe. The O's were actually supposed to win games, so their 21-36 record sticks out like a sore thumb in the standings. Now we have a new low point of the season.
Baltimore ended up winning the game, 4-2, but potentially at the expense of their dignity — or whatever remains of it. This O's season has been a real bummer for all of us, but especially for Orioles fans. And even more so for the players. One almost can't blame them for taking drastic measures to ensure victory.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, Orioles rookie Coby Mayo roped an RBI single into left field. When he tried to extend it to a double, however, Chicago caught him in a rundown. Instead of playing it out to its logical conclusion, Mayo made a split-second decision — what some, including White Sox infielder Lenyn Sosa, might consider loser behavior.
Mayo zagged out of the base path and essentially pushed Sosa before falling to the grass, claiming runner interference. Obviously the umps did not fall for it, and Sosa took exception. Mayo pushed his way through the crowding White Sox infielders and left the scrum completely — all while his teammates poured out of the dugout, along with the opponents' dugout. Not. A. Great. Look...
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White Sox announcers dunk on Orioles' Coby Mayo for exiting bases-clearing shoving match early
As you can hear in the clip, Mayo's decision to bolt the swarm of disgruntled players was not well taken on the Southside broadcoast. And rightfully so. It's a lame move, the sort of desperate fraud job we ought to lampoon. Mayo is a tremendously talented rookie and honestly, there is a certain measure of intelligence required to even attempt such an absurd move. Might as well give it the old college try instead of walking into an out, no?
Worse than the actual move is his decision to walk away mid-field storming. I'm not saying Mayo should have stayed there and gone 12 rounds with Sosa, but when teams storm the field on account of your actions, the least you can do is stay in the huddle. For optics, if nothing else. We don't need brawls in baseball, but you can't pull a Jalen Brunson-level flop, shove a guy, and then walk off when it gets interesting. That is how you get called out on the opposing broadcast.
Can anything save this Orioles season? Probably not, if we're being honest. It feels too far gone. We can't write the obituary in May, but we can at least begin the prep work. Maybe an outline, a few bulleted notes on how it all went wrong. The O's need to look in the mirror, top to bottom, in an attempt to figure out how we got to this place. The front office deserves blame. The coaching staff, pre and post-Brandon Hyde, deserves blame. The players on the field deserve blame. It's a collective failure, the likes of which we haven't seen often in MLB.
O's fans have been waiting on Mayo's breakthrough for a while. He appeared in 17 games last season, but this is set up to be his big moment of arrival. That is, assuming he can deliver. Moments like this take the fun out of what should be a light in a sea of darkness for Baltimorians.