Trey Mancini wished to loosen up.
Honestly, he did. Orioles supervisor Brandon Hyde might inform the primary baseman was urgent on the plate, so he gave Baltimore’s longest-tenured participant the night time off Monday to unwind and soak up a 5-1 win in opposition to the Tampa Bay Rays from the dugout, having fun with a view at Camden Yards that Mancini may not have for for much longer as commerce hypothesis swirls.
“Me being classic me,” Mancini mentioned, “by the third inning I’m going to the [batting] cage.”
With this being the ultimate collection at Camden Yards forward of Tuesday’s Major League Baseball commerce deadline, Mancini is bracing for the chance that this will probably be his closing time contained in the dugout alongside the primary base aspect of Camden Yards. He needs to deal with it as if that is his closing week, in a approach, as a result of he doesn’t wish to waste this time in entrance of the house crowd that has cheered him on since 2016 by racking his mind for a approach out of a stoop that, coming into Wednesday, has him hitless in his final 25 at-bats.
But outdated habits are arduous to give up, so Mancini left the dugout and joined co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller within the batting cage shortly after the beginning of Monday’s recreation, in search of a approach to escape of his mire. Still, he had it behind his thoughts — as he all the time does lately — of how treasured this time may very well be.
“I don’t want to get too caught up in my current slump and struggles and take for granted playing here,” Mancini mentioned, “because my whole career here is bigger than the last few games. I’ve gone through slumps before. I don’t want that to outweigh what the city and the fans mean to me.”
Mancini has consciously labored on the psychological aspect of his recreation, doing yoga, meditation and respiration workout routines to reduce the anger he’d really feel after a strikeout when he was youthful. He missed the 2020 season after present process surgical procedure to take away a tumor from his colon and 12 rounds of biweekly chemotherapy remedies, and the strain he felt to show he might nonetheless play on the highest stage regardless of what he’d gone by was intense — and it was largely self-applied strain.
Hyde recalled seeing him in a spring coaching recreation in 2019, his first yr as supervisor. He puzzled why Mancini had gotten so riled up about an at-bat that didn’t a lot matter within the grand scheme of issues.
“But that’s just who he is,” Hyde mentioned. “He’s a perfectionist. He’s a really, really good baseball player that feels he should do well, and when he has his struggles, he puts a lot of it upon himself and takes it extremely hard.”
After the 2021 season, he and his fiancée, Sara Perlman, went to Laguna Beach, California. It was an opportunity to reset after an “insane year,” Perlman mentioned, one which included commerce hypothesis across the deadline. He handled these questions on the deadline in 2019, and he’s doing so once more now.
With that new mindset, Mancini is extra “at peace” with no matter occurs on the commerce deadline. He’s hitting .268 with a .749 OPS — numbers that would assist a contender within the playoffs, if not Baltimore by itself surprising push for a wild-card spot.
“It’s definitely a strange position, especially with us playing so well,” Mancini mentioned. “I obviously want to stay. I believe in this team, so I want to stay around and see what we can do. But at the same time, I understand the business side of it and what fits us personnel-wise. I’m well aware I could get dealt in the next week.”
So after spending two innings within the dugout alongside the primary final analysis — the one he’s known as residence since 2016 — Mancini headed to the cage. He has a stoop to interrupt out of, in any case, be it for the Orioles or one other group throughout the subsequent week.
There simply wasn’t time to loosen up.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com