Whenever Ryan Mountcastle’s heart rate went up, he began to feel light-headed, dizzy and nauseated. The feelings increased whenever the first baseman stepped in the batter’s box for the Orioles. Hitting, already a difficult task, felt impossible.
Having missed a month after experiencing vertigo, Mountcastle rejoined the Orioles on Sunday for the final game before the All-Star break, activated off the injured list with left-hander Bruce Zimmermann optioned to Norfolk. Mountcastle, 26, last played for Baltimore on June 8, but he believes he was already dealing with symptoms then. In his final two games, both in Milwaukee, Mountcastle went hitless in eight at-bats with five strikeouts.
“After the last game, I was like, ‘I think there’s something wrong,’” he said Sunday in the visitors’ clubhouse at Minneapolis’ Target Field. “This feels like the longest I’ve ever gone without playing, and it wasn’t fun at all. Just happy to be back and to feel like a normal human again.”
Mountcastle remained on the Orioles’ roster for the next three games but didn’t appear before landing on the IL. He said he had no history of vertigo before this experience, and he’s “praying” he won’t face it again.
“I felt like the ball was a pea size, and it was just blowing by me for a couple games there,” he said, “and I was like, ‘This doesn’t feel right.’”
To treat the symptoms, he took medication and did epley maneuvers, a series of head movements designed to relieve symptoms of vertigo. Mountcastle spent a week on the injured list before joining Triple-A Norfolk for a rehabilitation assignment, acknowledging he “still felt a little weird” during his first week with the Tides, in which he went 0-for-14 with three walks and six strikeouts. But he began to have a sense of normalcy “a week or so ago,” and it showed in his play. Mountcastle recorded hits in seven of his final eight rehab games, batting .300 with a home run and a .717 OPS, though he still struck out in more than a quarter of his plate appearances.
During Mountcastle’s rehab, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde was frequently coy about his potential return. Before Saturday’s game, Hyde echoed his previous comments, saying the team was taking a “day-to-day” approach with Mountcastle. Sunday, he acknowledged the uncertainty of Mountcastle’s situation made it difficult to forecast.
“I felt terrible for him,” Hyde said. “The whole team did, and I thought our guys did a great job of kind of rallying around him and giving him some space and some time that he needed. He was down in Norfolk for a while and trying to get back into the swing of things a little bit. I know he’s been feeling better here as of late, and he feels great today.”
The Orioles activated Mountcastle on the penultimate day of his 20-day rehab assignment, though he was out of the lineup for Sunday’s series finale against the Minnesota Twins. At the time he went on the IL, Mountcastle led the Orioles with 11 home runs. But he had slumped even before his struggles in Milwaukee, batting .180/.241/.310 in his previous 27 games. In his final 65 plate appearances before going on the IL, Mountcastle struck out 20 times, batting .158 with one home run and a .459 OPS.
In his absence, Ryan O’Hearn secured the Orioles’ first base position. Since adjusting his hand position and posture in late May, O’Hearn is batting .327 and slugging .551, with the left-handed hitter typically serving as Baltimore’s cleanup hitter against right-handed starters but sitting against lefties.
Before going on the IL, Mountcastle, a right-hander hitter, posted a 1.017 OPS off lefties, compared to a .539 mark off right-handers, suggesting the potential for a platoon situation. Asked what Mountcastle’s return means for O’Hearn, Hyde replied, “Not much.”
“Ryan [O’Hearn] has been swinging the bat extremely well,” Hyde said. “He’s made a start against almost every right-handed starter so far, and Ryan’s swung the bat outstanding here the last month, month and a half. Done a great job. So adding Mounty just gives us another player, another good player, a guy that’s hit some homers, done some things in this league. But yeah, a good problem to have, a bunch of good players. But O’Hearn keeps doing what he’s doing, I’m not going to take him out.”
Hyde has said recently he has 13 position players he wants to give at-bats, and with Mountcastle replacing Zimmermann, a Baltimore-area native who had been providing length out of the bullpen, Hyde has 14 for now.
“It was definitely frustrating, and obviously, I want to be on the team,” Mountcastle said. “We’re playing really well and wanted to contribute. It just is what it is. I’m just happy to be back now.”
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