Orioles shortstop Jorge Mateo was one of the best players in the major leagues during the first month of the season.
Mateo, 27, has certainly played a key role in the Orioles’ strong start to the year. Not bad for a player who was claimed off waivers nearly two years ago.
The 6-foot-1, 200-pound shortstop is slashing .347/.395/.667 with six homers and 17 RBIs through 83 plate appearances. He is second on the club with 10 stolen bases behind Cedric Mullins. He has been the club’s top player so far this season, according to Baseball Reference (1.7 WAR) and FanGraphs (1.6).
Mateo went 1-for-4 with a solo home run in a 5-3 victory against the Tigers on April 30, extending his hitting streak to seven games. During that stretch, he has gone 8-for-25 (.320) with three homers and two stolen bases.
“It’s about being intelligent. It’s about making adjustments,” Mateo recently said through an interpreter. “Those players who make quick adjustments tend to succeed a lot better than other players. It’s a matter of studying pitchers and learning how they’re trying to attack you and how they’re trying to game-plan against you. If you’re smart about how you want to view that and study that, then it’s going to help you make adjustments.”
Mateo, who hails from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, is building off last season when he was one of the Orioles’ most productive players.
He spent the entire season on a major league active roster for the first time in his career and set career highs in games (150), runs (63), hits (109), doubles (25), triples (7), home runs (13), extra-base hits (45), RBIs (50), walks (27) and stolen bases (35).
Mateo made 142 starts at shortstop, the most by any Orioles player since J.J. Hardy had 159 in 2013. Mateo led the American League and ranked second in MLB with 35 stolen bases, becoming the third Oriole (fourth occurrence) to lead the AL in steals. He joined Brian Roberts (2007) and Luis Aparicio (1963 and 1964). He was the sixth O’s player (eighth time) since 2000 to steal at least 35 bases.
He also won the Fielding Bible Award as the best defensive shortstop in MLB, per Sports Info Solutions. He ranked second among AL shortstops and third among MLB shortstops with 14 Defensive Runs Saved. That marked the second-most DRS by an Orioles shortstop since tracking began in 2012 (J.J. Hardy, 18, 2012)
This season, he might be playing at an even higher level despite missing two games with a hip injury.
“You can have a bad outing and have the confidence that you can be in the lineup the next day and redeem yourself and play really well,” Mateo said. “It does really give me the confidence to go out there and do a really good job.”
Orioles manager Brandon Hyde has long loved Mateo’s potential and the impact that he makes as an everyday player.
“I’m a huge Jorge Mateo fan,” Hyde said. “He’s playing so well. … Just doing a lot of things. Exciting player right now.”
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