Transformed at the start, cold through the middle and now scrapping to finish strong: What a weird season it’s been for
“His ability to stay on the baseball is key,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “It’s a left-center-field approach, and he doesn’t get long and you see a different swing.”
Those runs were more than enough support for
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“Coming off the surgery, my goal was to get feeling back to normal this year,” Cobb said. “There were some ups and downs on that path, but I think I finally found the direction I need to be in. I have something concrete to build off in the offseason and can come into next year strong.”
Cobb was aided Thursday by a wide cast of characters, with five Orioles enjoying multi-hit games and four posting multiple-RBI games.
Count Ruiz among that group. Hyde admitted recently the difficulties the O’s will face this season in evaluating their young players based on this summer’s 60-game sample. Ruiz is an example of that challenge, having shown improved power but inconsistency on both sides of the ball. He’s hit .230 with 21 homers and a .694 OPS as Baltimore’s primary third baseman since the start of 2019, below league-average production in many respects. This year, his slugging and barrel rates are improved, but he’s also striking out more and walking less.\n\nThen there is the curious case of his defense at the hot corner, which began at near-elite levels only to regress heavily over each of the past two seasons. Ruiz’s glove was a revelation at third in from Opening Day through mid-August, even after Ruiz dealt with a small bout of shoulder soreness. But throwing issues popped up over the season’s final month and his offensive numbers also leveled off.
“I just like when Rio stays closed and uses the big part of the field and uses the whole field,” Hyde said. “A lot of times, he gets big and tries to do too much. He has raw power that he didn’t have last year. He doesn’t need to generate like he was trying to last year. When his swing is short, it’s powerful. That’s when he’s at his best.”\n\nSo what does that mean going forward? There aren’t any high-level prospects banging on the door to replace Ruiz. But a positional logjam on the other side of the diamond could soon affect Ruiz, assuming