Austin Slater is leading off and playing left field tonight and Coby Mayo is at third base against a left-handed opposing starter.

Eloy Jiménez is the designated hitter. Colton Cowser is in center field.

Jackson Holliday stays at second base and is batting ninth.

Dean Kremer has made two career starts against the Nationals and is 2-0 with a 2.31 ERA in 11 2/3 innings.

Kremer has held opponents to a .523 OPS his first time through the order, compared to .817 for the rest of the game.

Coby Mayo is out of the Orioles lineup for tonight’s series opener against the Nationals at Camden Yards.

Ramón Urías gets the start at third base. Ryan O’Hearn is serving as the designated hitter.

Colton Cowser is in left field, Cedric Mullins is in center and Anthony Santander is in right.

Left-hander Trevor Rogers is making his third start with the Orioles after allowing seven earned runs and eight total in 9 1/3 innings. He’s faced the Nationals twice this season with the Marlins and allowed five runs in 12 innings.

Rogers has made 10 career starts against Washington and posted a 3.35 ERA and 1.283 WHIP in 48 1/3 innings. He’s never allowed more than three earned runs.

What do my mailbag and mimosas have in common? They both can be bottomless.

Next question: Anyone surprised that I chose to use mimosas as a comparison? The options were plentiful.

I had some extras from the last mailbag, which led us to the latest sequel to the beloved 2008 original.

Also, my leftovers stay fresh for days and yours change colors overnight.

Is Jackson Holliday here to stay forever?
In the majors? Yeah, he’s planted like a redwood. With the Orioles? Well, stay tuned.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Orioles bullpen couldn’t match the starting pitching today. Perhaps the bar was raised too high. Whatever the reason, the differences between the two were striking.

Albert Suárez didn’t allow a run in a career-high 6 2/3 innings, but Cionel Pérez lost a 1-0 lead in rapid fashion. Pinch-hitters José Caballero and Dylan Carlson had a double and single, respectively, to level the score. The sequence lasted three pitches.

Used again in a non-save situation, Craig Kimbrel walked three batters in the eighth – one of them intentionally – the Rays stole four bases, and Curtis Mead lifted a sacrifice fly to hand the Orioles a 2-1 loss before an announced crowd of 16,848 at Tropicana Field.

Brandon Lowe, Christopher Morel and Josh Lowe walked, the last intentionally, before Mead flied to right field and the Orioles failed to complete the sweep. They fell to 70-49 overall, 8-2 against the Rays and 6-1 in St. Petersburg.

They went 5-5 on a road trip that began in Cleveland. And they're back in a first-place tie with the Yankees.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Orioles infielder Jorge Mateo remains with the club on its road trip that concludes today. He’s on the 60-day injured list with a left elbow subluxation.

Mateo hasn’t undergone surgery at this point. He’s got another medical appointment that the club says will determine the plan.

Mateo wears a brace on his arm occasionally and is allowed to remove it.

The Orioles go for another Tropicana Field sweep this afternoon with Coby Mayo making his first start in his home state.

Mayo is 0-for-13 with two walks and eight strikeouts since his promotion.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Coral Springs native Coby Mayo received only six ticket requests for his first major league game in his home state. His parents, two brothers and some friends comprised his most intimate cheering section last night.

They didn’t get to watch him play.

Mayo sat for the second straight game, but tonight offers the possibility of his fifth start and sixth appearance.

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde won’t bury Mayo on the bench and he won’t write the rookie’s name on every lineup card. Hyde is searching for favorable matchups at the plate and third base.

Mayo is searching for his first hit. He’s 0-for-13 with two walks, both in his debut in Cleveland – and eight strikeouts. He’s simply the latest highly-rated prospect in the organization to make an entrance and stumble. Some of them figure it out without going back down and others, like Jackson Holliday this year and Colton Cowser in 2023, need a reset.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Orioles made another move today to upgrade their infield depth at the Triple-A level, signing veteran Jean Segura to a minor league contract.

The news comes two days after corner infielder J.D. Davis agreed to terms on a similar deal.

Segura, 34, is a career .281/.327/.401 hitter in 12 major league seasons with six teams. He made the All-Star team with the Brewers in 2013 and Mariners in 2018 and placed 13^th in National League Most Valuable Player voting with the Diamondbacks in 2016.

The 2024 season was passing by without Segura, who didn’t play in the majors or minors. He appeared in 85 games with the Marlins last summer and hit .219/.277/.279.

The Marlins traded Segura to the Guardians on Aug. 1, 2013 in the Josh Bell deal, and he was released that day.

I’m using flashcards to learn the names of the new players. My family is quizzing me.

Their first question: How did we get stuck doing this?

For me it's like, is that Austin Slater? No? Oh, hey Blake Hunt. Is that Seranthony Domínguez? Nope? I was gonna say Gregory Soto. I swear.

One thing that never changes is my mailbag except for the weight of its contents.

You’ll have a long wait if you think I’m going to worry about clarity, length and style.

CLEVELAND - Ryan Mountcastle doesn’t feel old. He’s just a product of his environment.

Mountcastle at age 27 is the respected elder of the Orioles redesigned infield. He scans the diamond and sees 20-year-old second baseman Jackson Holliday, 23-year-old shortstop Gunnar Henderson and 22-year-old third baseman Coby Mayo. Muscles begin to ache and he fights the urge to drive with his blinker on or write a check at the grocery store.

“It’s pretty crazy,” Mountcastle said. “For how young they are, how talented these kids are, it’s pretty remarkable. I guess being 27, the old guy in the infield, is pretty crazy.

“I guess I’m the mentor. I was coming up to bat (Friday) and I was like, ‘All right, you guys better drive papa in today.’”

I shared a STATS note Friday that the quartet was the fifth-youngest in Orioles history at 23 years and 169 days. The leaders are shortstop Ron Hansen (20), third baseman Brooks Robinson (21), second baseman Jerry Adair (21) and first baseman Bob Hale (24) at 22 years and 47 days on Sept. 28, 1958.

CLEVELAND – Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias phoned Coby Mayo on Wednesday morning after the trade deadline passed to review the club’s handling of their No. 3 prospect. To go over again why he remained at Triple-A Norfolk and to make certain that he understood the club's thinking and how much the front office believed in him. Stay patient and the call will come.

Mayo got it the following night.

Have your passport handy for the upcoming Toronto trip and hop on a morning flight to Cleveland.

Mayo insisted yesterday that he didn’t know about his promotion before manager Buck Britton told him Thursday night. He wasn’t alerted in the morning or able to figure it out after his removal from the game.

“Sometimes, you can make sense of the situation and what’s going on,” he said, “but I definitely did not know that I’d be here today.”

CLEVELAND – The Orioles circled their infield tonight with players drafted by the organization, including their catcher, the lone member of the group to play in college. Two-thirds of the outfield also was homegrown.

Five prospects ranked in the top 10 have debuted this season. The present has caught up to the future, and it’s going to take a group effort to make a deep postseason run.

They need to get there first.

Coby Mayo drew two walks in his first major league game and Jackson Holliday was productive at the bottom of the lineup, but the Orioles couldn’t climb out of a seven-run hole and lost to the Guardians 8-4 at Progressive Field.

The Orioles are 65-46 and can’t do any better than a split of the four-game series. They began the night tied with the Yankees for first place and nothing changed.

CLEVELAND – Coby Mayo had his suspicions.

He was told to get his passport sent to him, but that’s common among the Triple-A players. Everyone is supposed to keep it handy. Norfolk manager Buck Britton removed him from the game in the eighth inning. A big lead, though, so perhaps it meant nothing. Mayo didn’t want to make assumptions.

“He told me that I had six at-bats and it was a long game and he just wanted to get me off my feet,” Mayo said this afternoon, back on his feet at his clubhouse locker at Progressive Field. “You always want to speculate a little bit, but you never want to get too ahead of yourself.”

Did he?

“Of course,” he said, eliciting laughter in his first media scrum as a major leaguer.

CLEVELAND – The prospect watch has lost another participant. Coby Mayo officially is in the majors.

The Orioles selected Mayo’s contract today from Triple-A Norfolk, filling the one vacancy on the 40-man roster. Livan Soto was optioned as the corresponding move on the active roster, a day after he was recalled and met with the local media.

Mayo was told yesterday to have his passport overnighted, but he didn’t find out officially about his promotion until his removal from last night’s game in Charlotte. He went 4-for-6, came out in the eighth inning and received the news from manager Buck Britton. He boarded a flight this morning to Cleveland.

The move was inevitable for the No. 3 prospect in the system. Mayo, a fourth-round pick in the 2020 draft, was batting .301 with 22 doubles, two triples, 20 home runs, 61 RBIs and a .961 OPS despite missing a month with a rib injury sustained in a collision with a dugout railing.

Injuries pulled Mayo out of the minors. Jorge Mateo has a dislocated left elbow and Jordan Westburg has a fractured right hand, and their absences will extend deep into September. Mayo can play third base, where Westburg made 64 starts this season. He’s another right-handed bat for a team that wanted to correct its imbalance.

The Orioles have made the following roster moves:

• Selected the contract of INF Coby Mayo from Triple-A Norfolk. He will wear No. 16 and his first appearance will be his Major League debut.
• Optioned INF Livan Soto to Triple-A Norfolk.

Additionally, LHP Matt Krook has been outrighted to Triple-A Norfolk.

The Orioles’ 40-man roster currently has 40 players.

When the Orioles beat Toronto 10-4 on Wednesday and Jackson Holliday hit a grand slam, the high of that win got deflated postgame by the news that Jordan Westburg had fractured his right hand and would miss significant time.

When they got hammered 10-3 by Cleveland last night as lefty Trevor Rogers gave up five runs in his O’s debut, the gloom and doom of that loss was lifted by the news that Coby Mayo is joining the Orioles today in Cleveland.

The news was first reported here on MASNSports.com last night.

Mayo is ranked as baseball’s No. 12 prospect in the top 100 by Baseball America and No. 15 via MLBPipeline.com.

It seemed that when Westburg got hurt, that Mayo might replace him at third base. But Livan Soto was called up yesterday. However now, just like that, the team is turning to Mayo.

CLEVELAND - Gregory Soto thought he ruined his chance. Fire a pitch too close to Gunnar Henderson and forget about playing for the Orioles.

The anecdote is more amusing when told in front of his locker in the visiting clubhouse at Progressive Field, where the Orioles played the Guardians last night.

Soto was acquired from the Phillies last Friday for right-handed pitchers Seth Johnson and Moisés Chace. He met his teammates and drew a crowd of media at his locker.

There was a lot of it going around with five newcomers at the scene. Trevor Rogers wasn’t bothered until later because he was the starting pitcher. Can't break the unwritten rule.

A three-game series in Baltimore in June gave Soto more chances to observe and study the Orioles.

When Coby Mayo came out of Triple-A Norfolk’s game tonight in Charlotte in the bottom of the eighth inning, it wasn’t just to empty the Tides’ bench in an 18-10 win.

Mayo is joining the Orioles in Cleveland, according to two industry sources.

The trade deadline passed and the Orioles made the call to Mayo, the No. 3 prospect in the organization per MLB Pipeline and the 15^th in baseball.

Their infield has undergone drastic changes with Jorge Mateo and Jordan Westburg set for lengthy stays on the injured list with a dislocated left elbow and fractured right hand, respectively. Westburg, an All-Star, was hit by a pitch Wednesday.

Mayo is ready for the opportunity, with no reason to stay in the minors beyond padding statistics. He went 4-for-6 tonight and is batting .301 with 22 doubles, two triples, 20 home runs, 61 RBIs and a .961 OPS.

Liván Soto finally is going to play for the Orioles in his third stint in the organization.

The circumstances, however, are crushing.

Soto will be recalled from Triple-A Norfolk for Thursday night’s series opener in Cleveland as the injury replacement for Jordan Westburg, according to an industry source.

Westburg was hit on the right-hand today by a 95.2 mph fastball from Blue Jays reliever Yerry Rodríguez in the fifth inning. X-rays revealed a fracture.

Westburg circled the bases on Jackson Holliday’s first major league home run, a grand slam onto Eutaw Street in the Orioles’ 10-4 win. Ramón Urías replaced him at third base.

For the Orioles, the high they felt of winning 10-4 today at Camden Yards as Jackson Holliday hit a grand slam to lead the O's past the Blue Jays lasted briefly. The attention immediately turned to Jordan Westburg, who was hit in the hand with a fastball.

A team that has lost pitchers Tyler Wells, John Means and Kyle Bradish for the year and hopes to get Danny Coulombe back late in the year, and recently saw Jorge Mateo also get hurt, lost infielder Westburg. He will miss significant time after getting hit in the right-hand today by a 95 mph fastball in the fifth inning from righty reliever Yerry Rodríguez. He fractured his right hand.

Westburg, who has made starts at second and third, has batted .269 with 25 doubles, five triples, 18 homers, 58 RBIs and a .815 OPS in 101 games.

“All-Star player,” said manager Brandon Hyde, who hopes Westburg can make it back before the end of the regular season. “So, injuries are a part of the game. We have to pick up the pieces for him. We’ve got to play well. He is a huge part of our lineup, our culture, really everything. He’s right in the middle of everything and so we have to have other guys kind of step up in his place and fill the void.”

During the same series when catcher James McCann was hit in the face by a pitch Monday suffering multiple nasal fractures, now the O’s lose Westburg.

These things have a way of working themselves out. It’s more than just a catchy phrase suitable for stitching on a pillow.

Connor Norby was blocked at second base until he wasn’t. Injuries open doors and Norby is walking through one of them.

Jorge Mateo’s elbow injury is going to keep him off the active roster for an extended period. It’s called a “subluxation,” which is a partial dislocation. It corrected itself somewhere between Gunnar Henderson’s leg and the ground last night as they pursued a ball headed toward center field.

The Orioles haven’t determined whether Mateo needs surgery, but at least it isn’t a full dislocation. I’m not a doctor, but partial doesn’t seem quite as serious. However, it's a lot more than a mere 10-day absence.

In the meantime, here’s Norby, the No. 5 prospect in the organization who hit .297 with 21 doubles, a triple, 16 home runs, 57 RBIs and a .908 OPS in 80 games with Triple-A Norfolk but couldn’t get an extended stay in Baltimore. In pre-Mike Elias years, he would have been playing every day after probably receiving the organization’s Minor League Player of the Year Award. But it’s 2024 and the system is much deeper, making it harder for players like Norby to climb out of it.