Coby Mayo Is Mashing LH Pitching In 2026 In Ways Few Orioles Ever Have

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Exactly two players in the history of the Baltimore Orioles have hit more homer against left-handed pitching in a single season than Coby Mayo.

Gary Roenicke hit 18 in 1983, their last World Series team, as part of a legendary platoon, and Rafael Palmeiro (with Hall of Fame production but a Steroid Era stain) hit 14 or more homers off a lefty in a season on four occasions in Baltimore. But make no mistake, what Mayo, still just 24 and starting to figure some things out at the MLB level, is doing is rare in the storied history of this team when it comes to mashing southpaws, and it’s part of a compelling case to why he should play quite regularly down the stretch.

The Orioles, jumbled in a race with other bad teams for the final Wild Card spot, are not built for October and the baseball failures who constructed them didn’t even think so, or Mike Elias would gave handed the trade deadline differently. With slugging first baseman Pete Alonso dealing with a calf injury, the Orioles would be silly – even by Elias’s hideous standards – not to run Mayo at first as much as possible, with Christian Encarnacion-Strand a better third baseman than Mayo and starting to crush the ball again himself.

Baltimore cannot score runs with regularity, a player this inexperienced needs a runway and Mayo has earned it. Not many in the game right now are doing more against lefties – Mayo is in the top five - and few Orioles have ever done as such. Furthermore, Mayo has actually been better against righties than in the past since the All-Star Break (.808 OPS in 47 plate appearances against righties) and he’s been flashing more power.

Where Does He Rank?

Here’s the 12 best seasons in O’s history (min 100 plate appearances) vs lefties in terms of OPS (per stathead feature of baseballreference.com)

Player Year OPS PA HR RBI

1 Albert Belle 1999 1.283 128 11 27

2 Frank Robinson 1969 1.154 189 12 43

3 Randy Milligan 1990 1.153 129 8 22

4 Merv Rettenmund 1970 1.148 128 10 22

5 Chris Hoiles 1995 1.138 122 12 27

6 Matt Wieters 2011 1.124 142 11 26

7 Cal Ripken Jr. 1986 1.111 187 12 25

8 Steve Pearce 2014 1.110 111 9 18

9 Don Baylor 1975 1.105 153 6 24

10 Cal Ripken Jr. 1991 1.088 185 12 31

11 Coby Mayo 2026 1.080 116 13 24

12 Frank Robinson 1968 1.075 140 6 17

Mayo needs to cut down on swing and miss and make some better swing decisions. But that absolute bomb he his in Tampa on Monday was just another indication of the way he can dent a baseball and he produced another solo shot on Tuesday.

His overall toolkit, with long levers and holes in his swing, and having the unfortunate reality of playing for the Orioles with their abysmal player development staff and strategies, all works against him. But he’s a great kid and he wants to get better and he’s finally got some confidence going in spurts this season and they need to keep his bat in the lineup.

The fact that $19M-bust Tyler O’Neill is getting it going too, surely works against Mayo, and Elias will find every excuse he can to wring something out of O’Neill even though he offers literally no upside. But we’ll keep banging the drum for Mayo. Because he keeps giving us reasons to.

Do we have any faith in Elias of his overmatched puppet skipper, Craig Albernaz, to do the right thing? Of course not.

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