TORONTO — The left field wall at Camden Yards might not have broken Ryan Mouncastle, but it did force the Orioles’ first baseman into trying to be something he wasn’t.

After three years of watching his deep flyballs to left turn into outs when they would’ve been home runs in all 29 other MLB parks, Mountcastle is the biggest beneficiary of the Orioles’ decision to move the wall about halfway back in this season. The right-handed slugger lost 11 homers — three more than any other player — to the extended wall and his slugging percentage over the past three years dropped 56 points compared with his first two seasons in the league.

The change in distance, which will range from nine to 20 feet closer to home plate with the height being trimmed by five to six feet, should certainly help get some of those long balls back. Yet the wall wasn’t just a physical obstacle limiting his power. It was also a mental hurdle for Mountcastle, who stopped trying to pull the ball as much because it just didn’t pay off.

“I just tried to work center field, stay in the middle of the field, as opposed to being able to sort of turn and burn on some certain pitches, just because there [weren’t] very many great results over there in left field,” Mountcastle said. “So, hopefully this year, it changes a little bit and I can start pulling the ball a little better.”

However, that’s not a switch Mountcastle could flip on and off depending on the ballpark he was playing in that day. He found himself subconsciously adopting the same swing he used at home on the road, cutting into his power even when he was away from Camden Yards. From 2020 to 2022, exactly half of his home runs were to the pull side. Only 22 of his 53 long balls (41.5%) over the past three years were pulled to left field with just six of those on the road.

While injuries played a role in hindering his performance last season, Mountcastle’s splits on the road took a significant hit. He wound up hitting more home runs in Baltimore (eight) than he did away from home (five).

He averaged one homer every 12.6 road games in 2024 — a significant jump from his average of 6.4 the previous two campaigns even with the wall pushed back.

“I think there’s a good chance of that happening,” manager Brandon Hyde said of Mountcastle’s mentality shifting. “The wall took a lot of extra-base hits away from him, especially homers, and I think he’s going to get a little bit more comfortable at home. When he does everything right on a baseball and to be able to get rewarded for it, I think that’s going to be important. So, if Mounty hits the way he’s capable of, with the guys around him, it changes our team.”

Though he hasn’t broken the 20-homer threshold since 2022, Mountcastle has still been a productive player when healthy. His OPS-plus, a park-adjusted metric that estimates a player’s offensive output with 100 as league average, over the past two years is 115, putting him among the top 68 players with at least 750 plate appearances.

For comparison, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Trea Turner, who plays at the hitter-friendly Citizens Bank Park, has an OPS-plus only one point higher at 116 despite his actual OPS sitting at .791 to Mountcastle’s .755. As Camden Yards shifts toward a more favorable environment, the figures suggest Mountcastle’s overall production should improve naturally.

Mountcastle hasn’t played at Camden Yards yet this season with the Orioles opening in Toronto, but he’s known for months that he would be playing half his games at a more neutral stadium this year. He’s made pulling the ball a focus in the batting cages and he put that on display opening day, when he lined a 115.7 mph double to left for the hardest-hit ball of his MLB career.

His home ballpark is no longer a distraction.

“Just being able to take an inside pitch and hit it to left, as opposed to maybe trying to play something into right or center field,” Mountcastle said of how he’s changing his approach. “So, being able to hit the ball where it’s pitched is huge.”

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