Calling the Pen: Orioles’ Mansolino has managed to be himself, and it’s working

From his first game as Orioles interim manager, it was clear Tony Mansolino was his own guy, and that he was going to be refreshingly honest.

He was thrown into a tough spot when his friend Brandon Hyde was fired, and executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias decided to announce it in a release and not address the move with the media until three days later in Milwaukee. It was up to the players and Mansolino to provide the reaction.

Adding to the shock, starter Kyle Gibson allowed the first six Nationals batters to reach and all scored in a 10-6 blowout. Mansolino had been tossed into the deep end of the pool, and he was blunt when he came up for air.

“Not excited. This isn’t a good thing for us,” Mansolino told the media. “We’re going to miss Brandon in a lot of ways. To me, he did a great job here. It’s the most wins in baseball the last couple of years. It’s a Manager of the Year. So to get to this point where a change is made is not something any of us wanted by any means.”

Mansolino lost his first four games as manager, and the Orioles were 18 games under .500 on May 24th. If he felt any added pressure, it didn’t show. He answered questions thoughtfully and thoroughly, never appearing to get short with a media group that was watching a team slide out of contention.

Well, the Orioles are coming up on a tough week — four games in Tampa Bay followed by three in New York — but they’re suddenly looking like a team that is finding its way back. Since May 24th, the Orioles are 14-6, 10 games under .500 and just finished sweeping the Los Angeles Angels with an 11-2 victory.

And they did it by defeating a left-handed starting pitcher for the second straight game and having Adley Rutschman, Jackson Holliday, Ryan O’Hearn and Colton Cowser on the bench. Mansolino also threw in another wrinkle by using Scott Blewett as the opener and bringing in Cade Povich in relief.

“You sit down Jackson and Adley and O and Cowser, and you go up there and throw up 11 points on the board, it’s a really good day,” Mansolino said.  “I thought we were creative today on how we put things together, both on the pitching side and the offensive side. A lot of stuff worked out today.”

Mansolino has had the good fortune of getting back Jordan Westburg, Cedric Mullins, Gary Sánchez and Cowser from the injured list, but he and his coaches have shown they’re not afraid to make decisions, even if some are unorthodox.

Buck Britton, who replaced Mansolino as the third base coach, has been extremely aggressive in sending runners home, including Sánchez, who scored from first on a Mullins bunt that Angels starter Yusei Kukuchi fielded before throwing the ball down the right-field foul line. It put the Orioles up, 4-2, at that point.

Mansolino also appears to have redefined the roles for his bullpen, which has been stellar, and his use of an opener was followed by solid performances by Dean Kremer, who had the misfortune of pitching against Tarik Skubal, and Povich, who’s been having trouble avoiding at least one bad inning. On Sunday, Mansolino rescued him from a bases-loaded situation with a 5-2 lead, bringing in Serathony Domínguez , who struck out two to end the threat.

Since May 26th, Domínguez hasn’t given up a run, allowing two hits, three walks and striking out 16 in 9 1/3 innings. Mansolino provided some fun detail about taking his time before calling on Domínguez.

“We were trying to buy him more time … to make sure he was loose, kind of a weird day with the weather, right? Took probably a hair longer than normal, so as I walked in, I was like, ‘Man, did we get him enough time right there?’ The first pitch was 99 and Frenchy [Drew French] goes, ‘Yeah, he’s good.’”.

It’s difficult to predict if the Orioles will continue to play good baseball, but it’s definitely been more fun, and Mansolino appears as loose as his players were this past weekend.

“For me, it was just try to get the players back to being themselves, whatever that entails,” Mansolino said. “I feel like as we watch some of these last few days, it feels like Westburg kind of looks like Westburg, Gary kind of looks like Gary, Gunnar kind of looks like Gunnar.”

And Mansolino looks like Mansolino, just as he has since Day 1 as the interim manager.