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Asked about comments from New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone and outfielder Aaron Judge about Camden Yards’ new left field wall, Trey Mancini, the longest-serving Oriole, admitted it’s not the first time he’s had such complaints from visiting batsmen hears.
“Nobody likes it,” Mancini said, laughing. “No hitter likes it, including me.”
Both Boone and Judge criticized the Orioles’ changes to their iconic ballpark after Tuesday night’s 5-4 win, in which Judge twice hit a home run but lost a potential third home run on a ball that also ranked every other major league ballpark would have left like Camden Yards a year ago. The judge called the changes, which moved the left fieldwall back nearly 30 feet and increased its height by more than 5 feet to reduce the ease of homering onto that part of the stadium, a “travesty.”
“It’s looking like a create-a-park now,” Judge told reporters, with Boone adding, “Build-your-own-park got him.”
On Wednesday, Judge’s lost home run is one of six balls hit by visitors who likely would have left Camden Yards with the stadium’s previous dimensions, according to The Baltimore Sun. The Yankees accounted for half of that in the previous two days; No guest player had scaled the wall entering Wednesday’s game.
Mancini has twice lost a home run against the new wall and christened it with a double off the padding during Baltimore’s first homestand. The Orioles have lost eight homers against the wall, with Ryan Mountcastle, Austin Hays and Anthony Santander managing to hit balls over it.
As he and other Orioles attackers have since plans for the new wall were first reported this offseason, Mancini repeatedly noted that “it is what it is.” Mountcastle, like Judge, hit a ball that only stayed in the park because it was hit at Camden Yards, a blast that ricocheted off the top of the new wall. Mancini said players can laugh at such things because they know it’s out of their control.
“There’s nothing we can do about that,” Mancini said. “It’s nothing to think about when you’re on top of the plate. But that doesn’t make it any less tough when you hit a ball that you think should definitely be a homer.”
[ Orioles reset: Through two homestands, the new ‘mountain’ in left field at Camden Yards is proving difficult to scale ]
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Tuesday’s comments mark the second time this month that New York has been embroiled in the ballpark sizing discourse. After Gleyber Torres’ walk-off home run on May 8 down the short right field porch at Yankee Stadium, Texas Rangers manager Chris Woodward said the ball “would have been an easy out in 99 percent of baseball’s stadiums. … He accidentally met it at a little league ballpark.” In response, Boone quipped Woodward’s “math’s up” because there are 30 parks, which means 99% wouldn’t be possible.
Since Yankee Stadium opened in 2009, Camden Yards — which is celebrating its 30th anniversary — has been the only major league venue to have hit more home runs.
However, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde did not take a shot when Boone criticized his team’s home park, saying he would “take the high [road]He was referring to comments from Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli about the changes to Camden Yards requiring right-handers to, as Hyde put it, “become real hitters.”
“In the past, flyballs to left field were homers and that was often really unfair,” Hyde said. “It just plays fairer than before.”
Of course, the Orioles’ thugs will be more affected than any other team’s, so comments like Judge’s and Boone’s fall a bit flat on Mancini. The changes came at a bad time for Mancini, who is a potential season-ending free agent and whose future earnings depend on a strong 2022 campaign.
“So we play half our games here,” said Mancini, who fell silent before adding: “I know that [Judge’s] Ball was probably supposed to be a homer, but yeah, we’ve had some that should have been too. Like I said, we play half our games here, so not great as right-handers.
“It’s still our job to go out and play, so complaining about that isn’t going to help us. But that doesn’t mean that we necessarily like it.”
