Ryan Mountcastle Becomes Fastest To 50 Home Runs in Orioles History

With his two-homer performance on Wednesday, Baltimore Orioles first baseman Ryan Mountcastle became the fastest player in franchise history to hit 50 home runs, doing so in just 231 career games.

Ryan Mountcastle has very much gone under-the-radar for the Baltimore Orioles over the past year or so with great performances from Cedric Mullins, Trey Mancini and the recent call-up of Adley Rutschman.

In 2021, Mountcastle hit 33 home runs in his first full season in the big leagues, finishing sixth in AL Rookie of the Year voting.

Funny enough, he played in enough games in 2020, his actual debut year, to also be eligible for the award, finishing eighth that year.

Fast forward to 2022 and Mountcastle is continuing to hit homers for Baltimore and on Wednesday, he became the fastest player in franchise history to hit 50 career home runs.

Fastest to 50 🔥

Ryan Mountcastle has become the fastest Oriole to reach 50 career home runs! pic.twitter.com/9eQHZvIhyV

— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) June 17, 2022

Baltimore ended up losing to the Blue Jays, 7-6, in 10 innings as Mountcastle led the offense, hitting two homers while driving in three on the night.

His second of the night, a 413-foot shot in the eighth inning off Toronto Blue Jays reliever Yimi Garcia, was the record-breaking homer.

Ryan Mountcastle tweaked his batting stance since last season and it’s paid off.

.316 xBA
.612 xSLG
.399 xwOBA
50 Hard Hit%

12 HRs so far and fastest Oriole to 50 career HRs. #BirdLand

2021 (left) vs 2022 (right): pic.twitter.com/VHhLdz9zKg

— DataBase Hit (@DatabaseHit) June 17, 2022

Mountcastle must love Canada because his statistics against the Blue Jays are amongst the best against any single opponent in his career. In 29 games against Toronto, he's hitting .348/.400/.696 with 12 home runs and 23 RBI. 

Three of those homers came in this last series, which is a great sign heading into the weekend as the Orioles host the Tampa Bay Rays. He's currently riding a six-game hitting streak and has gotten a hit in all but three games so far in June.

Baltimore unfortunately was only able to take one in Toronto, a 10-2 blowout in the series finale where Mountcastle went 2-for-5 with two RBI.

The Orioles sit with a 28-37 record, 6.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox for fourth place in the AL East.